Over 14,000 Kwara poor get N5,000 monthly

More than 14,000 persons in Kwara State are receiving the N5,000 monthly stipend under the Federal Government Household Uplifting Programme, also known as Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme (CCTS).
Head of the programme Hajia Aminah Yahaya spoke yesterday in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ilorin.
According to her, the beneficiaries are drawn from 480 communities in the 16 local government areas.
She said: “Every local government has 30 communities uniformly. When we multiply this by 16 councils, it gives us 480.
“So, we have over 14,000 beneficiaries from the state so far. Of course, there is a plan to step up that number though we wouldn’t know when because we are not directly in-charge of targeting the beneficiaries.
“Ours is to pay the beneficiaries. So, as soon as names are available, it will be shared with us and once it is shared, we will start payment.”
Hajia Yahaya explained that as one of the eight pilot states, Kwara had started getting success stories from the beneficiaries as the money helped in changing their lives for better.
“The programme is about uplifting the household; changing their situation from what it is for the better, and one of the strategies we put in place is forming them into groups.
“We have what we call savings and group mobilisation training for all beneficiaries, where we teach them how to save from little, and most of them have been able to follow the example we gave.
“With the coaching they got, some of them have gone into petty trading, but the petty trading did not just start like that.
“In the group formation, they formed themselves into cooperative groups within a community and during every payment circle, they make rotational contribution among themselves. They inject this contribution into their businesses and they are telling a good story today,” she added.