8.1m households benefit from social safety net – FG

Orisemeke Benjamin

A totall number of 8.1 million households across Nigeria have so far benefitted from the National Social Safety Net program, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has said.

In a chat with journalists Wednesday in Abuja, Edun said the government is working to upscale the program in order to capture more vulnerable Nigerians who have had to face difficulties occasioned by ongoing reforms by the government.

He said, “8.1 million households have now been paid at least one tranche of the funds that were promised to them, N25,000, and they have two more payments to go. Some have received two and some have received three. And following from that, because what has been put in place is a very robust system, people are identified biometrically by their NIN, national identity number.

“Secondly, they are paid digitally through their bank accounts or their mobile wallets. So, it’s a very robust and sustainable system. The expectation is that the other seven million or so households will be paid by the end of the year.”

On the amount so far put into the program, Edun explained that in the last nine months, the sum of N330 billion into the national safety net by the federal government.

The minister noted that with the changes been made to the program, there will be a yearly budgetary provision going forward.  

“And more importantly, in any modern economy, a social safety net is an important aspect. And what Nigeria now has is a robust system of reaching whichever targeted set of people that it wants to reach to help the poorest and the most vulnerable on a long-term basis. So, we expect that there will be the ability to budget each year for assistance for people to be paid directly to help them at any given point in time with an intervention. So, Nigeria now has the basis for a modern social protection system. That was the promise of Mr. President. That is what he is now putting in place,” he added.

Explaining further, National Coordinator, National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office, Funmilola Olotu, said, there is a slowdown in the process because of the activation of National Identity Number (NIN) to the National Social Register (NSR).   

“It’s a bit slow because of the NIN to NSR activation. The president wants transparency, accountability, to make sure that these people receive their money directly.

“So, the reason why some have received three and some have received two and one is because Mr. President said we should link the NIN to the National Social Register so that we do direct debit transfer, no more the traditional way of making payments.

“So, this NIN integration that we did, we have visited about 7.9 million households and we have about 10.2 million NINs, of which NIMC has validated about 9.6 million. So, it is these validated NINs that we now, it’s because it’s a direct debit transfer, we pay money into the accounts,” she further explained.