Cash Transfer: NEC Rejects Buhari’s National Social Register over Integrity Issue

Deji Elumoye in Abuja 

The National Economic Council (NEC) has unanimously resolved not to use the national social register used by the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to implement its conditional cash transfer. 

Rising from its monthly meeting at the State House, Abuja on Thursday, the Council stressed that the register had integrity issues as the criteria for its compilation was unclear.

Briefing newsmen after the meeting presided over by Vice President Kashim Shettima, Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State said contrary to what the previous administration projected, it is not possible to digitally transfer money to the poorest of the poor the majority of whom are unbankable.

Soludo who was in the company of his Bauchi and Ogun States colleagues, Bala Mohammed and Dapo Abiodun, respectively,  noted that beneficiaries of the supposedly transferred cash could not be identified in the villages.

He said: We need to face the problem of the fact that we don’t have a credible register”.

According to him, NEC resolved that the states should come up with their own registers using formal and informal means to develop it, assuring that all beneficiaries at the subnational level could easily been accessed that way.

Soludo explained that NEC deliberated on ways to cushion the impact of the recent petroleum subsidy removal. 

Details later…