National Economic Council (NEC) has resolved to jettison the social register used by the Muhammadu Buhari administration to implement its conditional cash transfer.
Rising from its meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the council revealed that the register was replete with integrity issues, and the criteria for its compilation was vague.
Addressing newsmen, Anambra State governor, Charles Soludo, said contrary to what the previous administration projected, it is not possible to digitally transfer money to the poorest of the poor, majority of who are unbankable.
Joined by his Bauchi and Ogun counterparts, Bala Mohammed and Dapo Abiodun, Soludo said beneficiaries of the supposed cash transfers could not be identified in villages.
He said NEC resolved that states would come up with their own registers, using formal and informal means to develop them, assuring that all beneficiaries at the sub-national level would easily be accessed this way.
“We need to face the problem of the fact that we don’t have a credible register,” he said.
Soludo further revealed that NEC deliberated on ways to cushion impact of petroleum subsidy removal.
The governor also clarified that only about N900 billion would be shared among the three tiers of government at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), this month, as against the N2 trillion being reported on social media.
The meeting was chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima.
NEC comprises of the 36 governors of the federation, minister of finance, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, among others.
Participants at the meeting include: Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State, his Nasarawa State counterpart, Abdullahi Sule, and the deputy governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ossai.
Others include governors of Gombe State, Inuwa Yahya; Zamfara, Dauda Lawan; Katsina, Dikko Radda; Kwara, AbdulRahman AbdulRazak, and Abia, Alex Otti.
