Obaseki To Pay N20,000 Palliative To Vulnerable Citizens

The Edo State Government will, effective from September 2023, commence
payment of N20,000 palliative to vulnerable citizens of the state to cushion the biting effects of the removal
of fuel subsidy.
Mr. Chris Osa Nehikhare, the state
Commissioner for Communication
and Orientation, disclosed this at a
press briefing soon after the state executive council meeting on Wednesday.
Nehikhare said the N20,000 palliative to the vulnerable citizens of the
state was approved at the state executive council meeting on Wednesday
in line with the assurance Governor
Obaseki gave to the Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC) during the warning
protest the previous week.
According to him, the state government had set aside the sum of
N500 million to be given to the vulnerable citizens of the state at N20,000
per person, beginning from September, as palliative to cushion the biting
effects of the removal of fuel subsidy
and rise of fuel price.
The commissioner disclosed that
the N500 million will be taken from
the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
He assured that the state government had a reliable database of the
poorest of the poor in the state, compiled between 2019 and 2021 in conjunction with the World Bank.
“What Exco resolved is that we
should revalidate and review the
data and with the Edo State Residency Cards and the National Identity
Number (NIN), we have an effective
and efficient database that has enabled us to identify the very vulnerable in the state.
“When the review and the revalidation is completed, we shall begin
to disburse the sum of N20,000 every
month to the 314,000 households and
the over 100,000 persons in the database. We need to emphasise that the
N500 million is not from the federal
allocation but from the IGR of Edo
State.”