Ayuba Sanusi
NO fewer than two thousand (2,000) Kebbi State residents will benefit from the second phase disbursement of the KB-CARES programme worth Two Hundred Million Naira (N200,000,000.00).
Flagging off the programme on Monday at the Presidential Lodge, Birnin Kebbi, the Kebbi State deputy governor, Senator Umar Tafida Arugungu said that the programme aims to empower the less privileged and reduce poverty in the state.
Senator Arugungu said that the present administration under the leadership of Dr. Nasir Idris Kauran Gwandu has promised to support all intervention programmes across the sectors.
He then appealed to the beneficiaries to make judicious use of the grants given to them and engage in meaningful trades that will support them and hopefully employ others in the near future.
“I applauded you people the KB-CARES programme for the remarkable effort in reaching out to people in need, particularly the vulnerable”, Mallam Ahmed Idris, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, quotes the deputy governor as saying.
In her welcome address, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Hajiya A’isha Usman, thanked the Kebbi State governor for supporting the intervention adding that the targeted beneficiaries were the poor and the vulnerable to expand their access to livelihood and facilitating food security.
She explained that the disbursement was part of the COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus designed to last for two years.
Mrs Usman informed that the Kebbi State is the only state in Nigeria where beneficiaries get up to One Hundred Thousand Naira (N100,000.00) as support while in other states of the country, beneficiaries only get Thirty Thousand Naira (N30,000.00).
She further explained that over one thousand (1,000) beneficiaries received livelihood grants of One Hundred Thousand Naira (N100,000) to One Hundred and Fifty Thousand (N150,000.00) each across the state in the first phase of disbursement under the KB-CARES programme.
Also speaking, the Kebbi State Coordinator of the scheme, Hajiya Rukayya Muhammad Bawa, said the programme has targeted more than 28,000 beneficiaries, both males and females to engage in profitable ventures while emphasis would be placed on agriculture.
Hajiya Rukayya enumerated a number of projects carried out under the programme which have a direct bearing on the lives of people in the state
She added that water schemes were converted to solar power, feeder roads and more classrooms were also constructed in towns and villages across the state under the programme which is supported by the World Bank.
In attendance at the event were Secretary to the State Government (SSG) in the state, Alhaji Yakubu Bala Tafidan Yauri; the Head of Service, Alhaji Safiyanu Garba Bena, and the representative of the Emir of Gwandu, Magajin Rafi Alhaji, Sambo Aliyu, among others.
Eighteen-Eleven Media