The Special Adviser on Social Investments in the office of the vice president, Maryam Uwais, Monday, disclosed that poor Nigerians will start getting money directly from the federal government to ease their hardship.
She spoke at a workshop on Child Poverty and Social Protection in West and Central Africa, at the ECOWAS Secretariat in Abuja.
Uwais said: “30% of the poor in every state and local government would be catered for while the figure would be increased to about 50% next year.
“For the first time, government has budgeted money for the poor in the country. We have been given the mandate to develop a register for poor people.
“First and foremost, we are going into the communities organising socio group discussions and asking the communities themselves what poverty means to them,” she said.
Disclosing that N5000 will be the benchmark for each family, the presidential aide added: “There is poverty everywhere but if we say everybody is below the poverty line, poverty is higher in some places than others, so to avoid ghost beneficiaries we have asked them to have BVN so banks can pay directly to them.”
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