The Federal Government has stated that it will end the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) by the end of December 2022.
The conditional cash transfer is one of the federal government’s social intervention schemes to help ameliorate the challenges of poor Nigerians and the most vulnerable.
According to the head of the National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO), Dr Ibraheem Adam, the government intervention programme which was launched in 2016 has reached a total of 1,940,325 beneficiaries.
The beneficiaries who are often women, aged persons and the most vulnerable people are drawn from 609 local governments, 6,272 wards, and 48,789 communities.
Dr Ibrahim, who stated this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), commended President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Safiya Umar Farouq, noting that the money came in at a time poverty became endemic in the history of Nigeria.
He added that his office also oversee how the beneficiaries were grouped and mobilised for training on how to save and manage their money.
“We bring them into groups where they do rotational savings and contribution which metamorphosed into cooperative societies which they also own and by doing that they can also empower themselves.”
“The beneficiaries are mentored to properly utilise the knowledge gained in the cause of the capacity building at their doorstep,” he added.
Investors King understands that the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) is ending at a time when the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has estimated that about 63 percent of persons living in Nigeria (133 million people) are multidimensionally poor with 72 percent living on the rural communities.
The World Bank had also estimated that 4 in 10 Nigerians live below the national poverty line
A larger percentage of the beneficiaries of conditional cash transfers live in rural areas. The end of the conditional cash transfer could aggravate the financial condition of some of the most vulnerable.