THE POOR AND VULNERABLE TO BENEFIT SOON FROM THE IMO STATE GOVERNMENT, UNDER THE NG-IMO CARES PROGRAMME ~ C C Osuala
*IMO STATE PUBLIC ENLIGHTENMENT*
THE POOR AND VULNERABLE TO BENEFIT SOON FROM THE IMO STATE GOVERNMENT, UNDER THE NG-IMO CARES PROGRAMME
*"It is an all-inclusive package as nobody is excluded as long as you fall within the poor, middle class and of course the unemployed and the vulnerable"* ~ C.C.Osuala
*An interactive session between the Commissioner for Budget, Economic Planning and Statistics, Dr. C. C Osuala, and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Public Enlightenment, Prince Eze Ugochukwu*
*Question*: The Imo Cares program is to be domiciled in the Ministry of Budget, Economic Planning and Statistics to coordinate and provide advisory support roles What does this entail?
*Answer*: The N-Care program - I will say is a socio-economic and development program that the World Bank and the Federal Government in their wisdom thought that would help in ameliorating the impact of covid-19 pandemic on the small enterprise and medium-scale businesses, the poor, vulnerable individuals, youth across the state including artisans and the unemployed. In fact, it is like a welfare program just to stimulate and cushion the effect of the covid19 pandemic.
*Question*: You have flagged off your sensitization programme, how are you going to take it to the grassroots?
*Answer*: The sensitization programme is almost taking effect because we have the conditional cash transfer unit that is reaching the poor and vulnerable household; then we'll have the SUCO – (State Operating Coordinating Units) that is the data collection unit, collecting data about the unemployed, the youths and the vulnerable in the rural areas and various communities and villages. So in essence, the sensitization is already going on. Fadama is involved for agricultural sector too. We believe that some of our quasi-farmers are equally affected by the covid19 pandemic and to ameliorate the prices of food in the market. We have to encourage the people by stimulating or maybe giving them seedlings or fertilizers to encourage more agricultural productivity. So it is an all-inclusive package as nobody is excluded as long as you fall within the poor and the middle class and of course the unemployed and the vulnerable.
*Question*: The program talked about collaborating with the Traditional Rulers, President Generals, Women Leaders, Youth Leaders etc. How will this be achieved?
*Answer*: One of the indices of identifying the poor and vulnerable is to reach out to the community leaders, the traditional rulers and the president generals. By the time you do that, consensus opinion will be built among stakeholders. We use the World Bank standard for enumeration. We use that data to enumerate the poor and vulnerable in their various locations plus the opinion pool of the people in the communities, at a point you get a consensus. Its like a brainstorming template. You get a consensus of who is actually poor and vulnerable in those communities. This process is ongoing. It started with the cash transfer the SUCO – (State Operating Coordinating Units). We have been collecting data and as I speak now, we have about 125,000 poor and vulnerable already captured. We have our database which has already captured the youth and the vulnerable and the unemployed. So it is an ongoing process. What the NG-CARE will do, is to give impetus to this program in a sense toj add additional funding into what is already going on.
*Question* What of physical projects.
*Answer* The NG-CARE also includes projects like setting up boreholes, renovation of hospitals if need be, building of new ones where there is none in existence and also provision of educational access and facilities in our various communities.
*Question* What platforms will you use to deliver these projects.
*Answer* The steering committee is more like a policy-making body, but the operational platform are the places like the SUCO – (State Operating Coordinating Units), the conditional cash transfer unit, the Fadama, and other operational units within various ministries will pick up the operational arm. The steering committee is more of oversight function.
