By Obansa Ibrahim, Lokoja
The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation on Tuesday flagged off the distribution of grants to Vulnerable Groups in Kogi state.
The 20,000 cash grant is a way of ameliorating poverty and cushioning the effect of fuel subsidy removal among the vulnerable groups in Nigeria.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu while flagging off the distribution of grants to the beneficiaries explained that the grant for vulnerable groups is not a loan and will not be repaid.
She said “The President is committed to seeing that he pulls Nigerians out of poverty. He has placed a demand on himself and his team that a minimum of 50 million Nigerians are out of Poverty. To achieve this, the President set up a team to identify the poorest of our people and came up with series of programs that will improve the economy of the common man”.
“Today in Kogi state, we are officially flagging off the Grant for Vulnerable Groups in Kogi state. It is a kick starter and it should be used the right way. This is intended to boost your business and it is expected that it will help in whatever you are doing”.
In his address, Kogi state Governor, Yahaya Bello commended President Tinubu for alleviating poverty and eradicating hunger in the country. Bello described President Tinubu as a Humanitarian who has the interest of the common man at heart.
He said ” I appreciate the President because apart from the ones we did as announced by Commissioner for Finance, we were planning on how to do more and empower them when the President empowered the Humanitarian Affairs Minister and mandated her to run programs that is benefiting all”.
“We need to key in properly into this program and to be able to key in properly, we must have the Ministry and Agency that will be relating with the Mother agency properly. By the special grace of God, I hereby create the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Kogi state”.
“We will also transmit a bill for the creation of Kogi state Social Investment Agency to the House of Assembly along side the budget of 2024”.
In their separate goodwill messages, the Head of Service and Commissioner for Finance, Mrs. Hannah Odiyo and Mukadam Asiwaju Idris applauded the Poverty Eradication initiatives of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led administration for looking inward and having the people of Kogi state in their mind.
They expressed confidence that Kogi state will continually benefit from all the Poverty reduction programmes of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led Government.