The federal government, on Tuesday, said its cash transfer to citizens in the cities would only be received by those with N5,000 or less in their bank accounts.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar, disclosed this to State House correspondents in Abuja.
According to Farouq, such persons would form part of the additional one million households approved by President Muhammadu Buhari to partake in the cash disbursement.
Buhari had on Monday in a broadcast directed that the country’s current social register be expanded from 2.6 million households to 3.6 million households in the next two weeks.
The president said the cash disbursement, among other palliatives, was to cushion the effect of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the restrictive measures put in place to prevent the spread of the virus in the country.
Meanwhile, Farouq said the government’s focus in the expanded social register was on the urban poor.
“You are also aware that Mr President in his broadcast yesterday (April 13) has directed that we expand the beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer by one million.
“In this regard, we are going to focus more on the urban poor. These are people who depend on informal sector to earn their livelihood – They are daily wage earners and these are people we are really going to focus more on as well as people living with disabilities,’’ she said.
She said apart from the National Social Register, the Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) and previous record of purchase of recharge cards by mobile phone owners would form part of criteria in identifying the beneficiaries of the cash transfer.
“We are also using the mobile network, people that top up their phones with maybe N100, N200. These are the people we consider to be poor and vulnerable,’’ said Farouq.
