COVID-19 Action Recovery And Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) Increase Beneficiaries Stipends By 50%

COVID-19 Action Recovery And Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) Increase Beneficiaries Stipends By 50%

https://www.bzglobalservice.com.ng/2023/06/covid-19-action-recovery-and-economic.html

Governor Of This State Increases NG-CARES Beneficiaries To Stipend By 50% 

Kwara government raises NG-CARES beneficiaries to 5,348 and boosts the payout by 50%

The number of beneficiaries of the Nigeria-Covid 19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus Labour Intensive Public Workfare initiative at the local government level has been increased from 1,025 to 5,348 beneficiaries, according to Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.

Alhaji Abdulrazaq Folorunsho, acting chairman of the NG-CARES steering committee and permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance, said on Tuesday at the stakeholders’ refresher training workshop program in Ilorin that the governor had also approved raising the beneficiaries’ monthly stipend from N10,000 to N15,000 in order to offset the effects of the federal government’s fuel subsidy.

The programme, according to Folorunsho, was created by the Nigeria Governors Forum in collaboration with the federal government and the World Bank with the goal of reducing poverty, “especially among the teeming youth who constitute the greatest percentage of state population and are made more vulnerable by the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Alhaji Shamsideen Aregbe, the technical leader of the LIPW delivery platform, also spoke during the discussion. He added that after being authenticated, selected beneficiaries would be enlisted in the public workfare program in the infrastructure and social services sectors.

The improvement of public spaces, including cleaning of public areas, garbage and refuse collection and waste disposal, traffic control, rehabilitation of classroom blocks and public restrooms, and repair of clinics or primary health centers, among other things, are examples of the proposed LIPW activities, he said.

Aregbe added that the LIPW program’s original intent was to address the urgent issues of poor and vulnerable households losing their source of income due to the COVID-19 pandemic by offering immediate work opportunities in social sectors.

The intervention’s “targets” are women from low-income, vulnerable homes who are unemployed and unskilled and who are between the ages of 18 and 45. They must hold a Senior Secondary Certificate of Education or below in their educational background.

“The initial batch of 1,025 beneficiaries, who came from roughly 500 communities in the 16 LGAs throughout the state, were successfully discharged from the intervention in March 2023. They had been enrolled and deployed earlier in April 2022. After they had finished the required 12 calendar months of involvement in the Nigeria CARES LIPW program, this was done. Their departure makes room for the hiring of a new group of 5,348 beneficiaries from more than 700 communities throughout the state’s 16 LGAs to labor for an additional 12 months.

These potential recipients came from the Single Register database of low-income and vulnerable households and persons maintained by the World Bank. The State Operation Coordination Unit (SOCU) is where the registry is kept. As a result, the LGAs actively participated in a transparent, objective, and fraud-free procedure that produced the list of beneficiaries.

The purpose of the one-day refresher training program for the Labour Intensive Public Workfare Delivery Platform staff and the Community Development Officers from the State’s 16 Local Government Areas was to refocus the minds of the key participants in the Nigeria-CARES program’s Labour Intensive Public Workfare Delivery Platform implementation.