FG Targets Over Seven Thousand Cash Grant Beneficiaries In Borno

The Federal government says it is targeting 7,264 persons as beneficiaries of its Grant for Vulnerable Groups (GVG) program in Borno.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, announced this on Wednesday while inaugurating the program in Maiduguri.

“The GVG was designed to provide a one-off grant, a cash grant of N20,000.00, to some of the poorest and most vulnerable Nigerians in rural and peri-urban areas across the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

She said the cash grant is expected to help them cope with the extreme poverty they live in.

“Let me add here that our target in Borno State is to disburse the grant to 7,264 beneficiaries across the 27 local government areas of the state.

 The Minister said Borno has the highest slots in the country due to the impact of insurgency and the large volume of IDPs in the state.

She explained that Buhari, through his deliberate social inclusion agenda, had directed that 70 per cent of the beneficiaries must be women, while the remaining 30 per cent was for the youth.

According to her, the program took off in 2020 as a grant for rural women to sustain the social inclusion agenda of the present administration of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.

Gov. Babagana Zulum thanked Federal Government for its sustained support to Borno, adding that the inclusion of persons with disability and aged persons is apt.

Zulum who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Prof. Isa Marte, said the state government on its part had spent billions in supporting vulnerable persons, particularly in rural areas.

Zulum said the measures had gone a long way in frustrating the recruitment drive of insurgents in rural areas.

Other programmes carried out by the minister in Maiduguri included the distribution of starter packs to 168 N-skills beneficiaries and digital payment for conditional cash transfers.

She further performed the onboarding of independent monitors and inauguration of the sensitization to the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).