C’River Spends N448m On Welfare Scheme

The Cross River State Commissioner for Social Welfare and Community Development, Mrs. Edak Iwuchukwu, says the State Government has expended the sum of N448 million in its welfare schemes.

  She said the amount comprises the acquisition and putting in place necessary machineries and apparatus to kick off its Social Welfare Scheme Project of Hope and Comfort launched in August, 2009.

  She made this known to newsmen during the media interaction in Calabar, maintaining that the project, an initiative of Governor Liyel Imoke, is aimed at “bringing substantial relief to the less privileged families, who have children of school age.”

  They are targeted at being the beneficiaries of the Conditional Cash Transfer Component of the programme.

  Meanwhile, all pregnant women and children under the age of 5-years, who have been captured into the exercise, now have access to free health care services.

  Mrs. Iwuchukwu stated that the free health care was initiated as a solution  to  the alarming rate of infant and maternal mortality of two thousand in the state out of ten thousand death recorded in the country yearly, a situation she noted was above natural average. She stated that the successful kick off of the programme is an indication that the trend will be reversed when all the beneficiaries fully key into the exercise.

  She disclosed that the state has been chosen to access over N3.5 million from the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) fund in addition to the budgetary provision of N450 million to ensure effective implementation of the programme.

  Meanwhile, she said, the recertification exercise for all genuine beneficiaries of the scheme would soon be completed to ascertain the actual strength of the affected persons.

  On the plight of those living with disabilities, who, she noted, have suffered neglect from successive administrations, the Commissioner said that Government in partnership with supportive partners donated some equipment and tools to assist them according to their needs, adding that more of such donations are envisaged in the 2010 budgeting line with a robust plan to make life meaningful to them.

  She enunciated plans by her Ministry under the Department of Community Development in collaboration with Ministry of Environment to fashion out environmental best practice among the rural populace to mitigate climate change and reduce over dependency on the forest for survival.

The commissioner added that the exercise when rolled out, will check forest depletion as forest communities will be provided with alternative source of livelihood.