Enugu Moves To Reduce Poverty

The Enugu State Government in collaboration with the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has embarked on conditional cash transfer
to reduce poverty in the state, an official said.

The state Commissioner for Human Capital Development and
Poverty Reduction, Mr Godwin Ogenyi,
said this in an interview with The Tide in Enugu, recently.

Ogenyi said it was an important programme aimed at reducing
poverty among the chronic poor families in the state.

He said the government would give monthly subvention to
assist such poverty-stricken families, adding that  nine households in each community will be
selected from the 17 local government areas of the state, while one person will
be trained in skill acquisition.

Ogenyi  noted that a
trainee would be expected to choose the skill he would learn, and that at the
end of the training, the state government would provide the trainees with the
equipment and take-off money with which to establish a business.

“Conditions are attached to this; the conditions attached to
it is that it must be the very poor families – the people that really need it.

“Second condition is that there must be one member of that
family that can be trained to acquire skills,” he said.

According him, the people receiving this help must not be
families that are already receiving other pro-poor assistance, adding that they
must not be families that have a salaried member – somebody who is employed by
government and is receiving salary.

He further said that “they must be families that have
children that are within school age of primary school to JSS 3. That means the
core issue here is to ensure that such children are retained in schools.”

He said the programme would help to give children minimum
education and would also enable them to make a decent living.

Ogenyi added that the programme was to enable persons
affected to face  societal challenges and
to secure their future.