Speaking at the one-day training for the facilitators on Tuesday in Lagos, Micheal Ajuluchuku, the national programme manager at the National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO), Abuja, said the initiative would bring financial relief to vulnerable citizens in the state.

The Renewed Hope Conditional Cash Transfer of President Bola Tinubu’s administration would provide 15 million Nigerian households with a cash transfer of N25,000 for three months.

Mr Ajuluchuku said the step-down training was to equip the facilitators on enrolling the 283,003 beneficiaries in the state.

Represented by Zainab Usman, an official of the National Cash Transfer Office, Abuja, he said the programme will focus on rural and urban, poor and vulnerable households in the country.

“The design of the scale of NASSP-SU intervention has two components, Shock Responsive Social Protection (Urban), and Shock Responsive Social Protection (Rural) that is aimed at providing N25,000 for three months to beneficiaries amounting to N75,000,” he said.

Speaking on the selection process, he said the National Social Safety Net Project has two programme-implementing units; the National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office is responsible for the population of data of the poor and vulnerable across the country.

He added, “The second programme implementation unit is the National Cash Transfer Office, which is mainly responsible for delivering the intervention.”

Mr Ajuluchuku noted that Mr Tinubu decided to sustain the project, which started with the former administration, because of the impact the programme had made in the lives of Nigerians.

He said that Tinubu’s administration had increased the number of beneficiaries from two million to 15 million.

Also, Akinyemi Ajigbotafe, the Lagos State Commissioner for Wealth Creation, lauded the federal government’s commitment through the NCTO under the Ministry Of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

Lola Orimogunje, the programme manager of the Conditional Cash Transfer, Lagos State, urged beneficiaries to provide their National Identification Numbers (NIN) during enrollment to meet the eligibility criteria for opening bank accounts in fulfilment of the recent Central Bank of Nigeria directives.

Ms Orimogunje said all beneficiaries would be paid through their bank accounts.

(NAN)