COVID-19: FG begins cash transfer to poor Nigerians

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, has disclosed the commencement of cash transfer to poor Nigerians, amid the Coronavirus scare.

Farouq said her Ministry has commenced the advance payment to support poor Nigerians, following the stay-at-home order issued by the Federal Government.

She made the disclosure while addressing journalists in Abuja on Monday.

According to the Minister: ”Mr. President in his speech, paragraph 54,directed that conditional cash transfer be given in advance of two months. This we have also done. We have directed immediate cash transfer to the poorest and most vulnerable households in the country.

“Because of this COVID-19, the vulnerable groups have expanded, because we are aware that there are people who live on daily wages, so we are also going to look at those groups of people to see how we can get this food relief intervention to them in this period.”

It would be recalled that Buhari, in his nationwide broadcast on Sunday granted a three-month suspension of debts owed the Federal Government through the TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni loans.

Buhari gave the directive in his speech, analysing his government’s efforts to contain the spread of Coronavirus across in the country.