By Lucky Isibor
The New Apostolic Centre for Development (NCD), a faith based organisation has appealed to the federal government to resume payment to beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), to the poorest of the poor in Edo State. The NCD also appealed to the beneficiaries of the CCT not to loose hope just as they were urged not to see Edo State government and other state facilitators in bad light.
The Advisor, New Apostolic Centre for Development, Mr. Victor Oriakhi stated this in Benin Thursday, on the occasion of a town hall meeting of the feedback to the CCT beneficiaries on grievance redress mechanism carried out by the NCD on their behalf between Monday, 13 July to Monday 27 July, 2020.
The New Apostolic Centre for Development is partnering the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) in her Monitoring of Recovered Assets Through Transparency and Accountability, (MANTRA) project with the support from the Department of International Development (DFID) in it’s Anti-Corruption in Nigeria (ACORN) programme.
Oriakhi stated that NCD carried out a study to find out why the CCT which started late in six local government areas in Edo State in September 2019 stopped in January 2020.
According to him, “As most of you are aware, the conditional cash transfer programme of five thousand naira (N5000) monthly to the poorest of the poor, which is paid bi- monthly as N10,000 per beneficiary started in Edo State and some other states late 2019. To be precise, it started in September. The beneficiaries in our state were paid up to December 2019. They have waited patiently since and no payment have been made since January 2020. It became very worrisome to our senior partner (ANEEJ) for one very important reason. ANEEJ played a leading and vital role in the process of the repatriation of the Abacha loot and the prevention of its re-loot.”
The NCD Advisor wondered why the CCT would come late to Edo State where ANEEJ is domiciled and worse still discontinued since January 2020 noting that was what prompted the study to find out what happened.
According to Oriakhi, the SSA to the Edo State/CCT programme manager revealed that, “there was a problem with the service provider and by translation and extension, the facilitator with the beneficiaries”, stating that he assured that plans are afoot to address the issue at the national level.
According to Oriakhi, “through the instrumentality of our questionnaires the common believe among beneficiaries for a truncated payment exercise was the Covid-19”.
In her remarks, the CCT Unit Coordinator, Mrs. Flora Bossey assured the beneficiaries that the government will pay them all what is due to them since payments were stopped in January.
Mrs. Bossey urged them not to part with any amount of their benefits to any one who may approach them that they assisted to make them beneficiaries adding they should report anyone who would make such attempt.
Also speaking, the Executive Director, ANEEJ, Rev. David Ugolor assured beneficiaries that ANEEJ will continue to monitor the process and ensure they are paid.
Ugolor who was represented by Uthman Adeleye stated that they’re are monitoring the CCT through out the country having partners in other states just as it’s partnering NCD in Edo State.
