By Stanley Nwanosike
Enugu – Mr Kola Solomon, National Training Officer of National Transfer Unit Programme has warned facilitators of Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme to be transparent and shun corrupt tendencies in their operations.
Solomon gave the warning on Tuesday in Enugu during a five-day train-the-trainers’ workshop on savings and group mobilisation for local government cash transfer facilitators.
He further admonished the facilitators to desist from extorting money from beneficiaries, who are mostly rural dwellers.
He emphasised that the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development initiated the programme to provide succour to the poor.
“They should not use this opportunity to start asking the beneficiaries to contribute money in any form because the programme is about lifting the poor out of poverty.
“The Federal Government cares about the poor people and their wellbeing.
“The facilitators must be transparent and not partner with corrupt minds, so that the beneficiaries will receive the amount they were supposed to receive, which is N10,000 every two months,’’ he said.
He said that facilitators selected from different local governments in the state were being trained on savings and group mobilisation.
Solomon also said that the training would later be stepped down to the ward level.
He said the training would allow the beneficiaries the opportunity to contribute money as a cooperative and start up a business, since the money given to them would not be enough to start their own individual businesses.
“The training is to build the capacity of facilitators, so that they are able to educate the beneficiaries to form groups.
“Beneficiaries are also to develop a habit of saving to begin acquiring sale-able goods and services by engaging in micro businesses to enable them care for themselves better,’’ Solomon said.
Earlier, the Head of Operations, Enugu State Cash Transfer Units, Mrs Uzoma Enedu, lauded the federal and Enugu State governments for empowering the poor and vulnerable.
“We are having challenges of security because of delay in disbursing the fund to the poor.
“Sometimes, when they, rural dwellers, see us, they will come out with force to collect money but thank God we do not handle cash.
“We have yet to start disbursing cash to our beneficiaries because programme managers have not completed data collection on beneficiaries in the state.
“Beneficiaries from other states have started receiving their own,” Enedu said.
She therefore called for urgent state government’s intervention, so that beneficiaries, who had been waiting since January, should begin to get their fund like other states.
(NAN)