Poverty: More Nigerians To Benefit From Cash Transfers – Finance Minister

The Federal Government through the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office is developing a Rapid Response Register to quickly scale up the enrolment of poor and vulnerable citizens mainly in the Nigerian urban areas.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, said this at the Open Government Partnership 2020 Virtual Leaders Summit Roundtable.

The theme of the event was “Open Recovery: Tracking the trillions of dollars in stimulus and safety net packages.”

She said that the poor and vulnerable Nigerians are to potentially benefit from cash transfers to cushion the socio-economic impact of Covid-19 pandemic.

The event was to advance discourse and innovation around open response and open recovery measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pandemic is an unprecedented global threat which had resulted in far-reaching economic and health consequences.

According to her, data for the register are being sourced through primary and secondary sources, including the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System and the National Communication Commission database on mobile phone users.

In order to ensure transparency as well as mitigate corruption risks, the Minister said that payments would be made directly to the accounts of the individuals using their Bank Verification Numbers.

Speaking on the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister said, “Our response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been proactive, people-oriented and aimed at averting drastic economic decline and protecting our muost vulnerable citizens.”

On work done on the 2021-2023 Medium-Term Fiscal Framework and the Appropriation Act, she said the government had introduced a fiscal stimulus package of N2.3trn aimed at scaling up social safety nets including cash transfers and school feeding programmes.

The Finance Minister added that the government is currently implementing a multi-sector economic sustainability plan.

According to her, a key priority for government is to deploy funds transparently and in a targeted and efficent manner that maximises the impact, in keeping with the government’s commitment under OGP national action plan.

She said, “This is especially important given our limited fiscal space and low domestic revenues.

“To this end, in addition to existing OGP measures around budgeting, citizens engagement, open contracting, anti-corruption and others, we have introduced measures to sustainability enhanced fiscal prudence and transparency.”

She explained further that the government has also established a technology-enabled result-based performance management framework to track expenditures under the ESP, including the fiscal stimulus package and other governmet interventions.

She added, “The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical importance of targeted interventions that have built in safeguards to ensure transparency, accountability, prevent corruption and ultimately strenghten the social contract between governments and citizens.

“We in Nigeria join OGP and other member countries in promoting a global response that is underpinned by the principle of accountability, transparency and inclusiveness, which ensures citizen-centred and sustainable recovery,” she added.