Ben Ezechime, Enugu
Enugu State Governor, Dr Peter Mbah, has said that the objectives of the COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES), are in tune with his administration’s vision to bring poverty to zero level in the state.
Mbah said this during the “Peer Learning And Experience Event” organised by the Federal Cares Support Unit of the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning in Enugu on Thursday.
The NG-CARES is a collaboration between the Federal Government and the World Bank aimed at responding to hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mbah, represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Professor Chidiebere Onyia, said that the government embarked on the distribution of agricultural inputs, assets and grant worth over N4.6 billion to farmers, communities and ICT start-ups in the state.
“Consequently, over 12, 000 Small holder farmers received one bag of fertilizer each while 51 power tillers worth N2 million each were distributed to farmers from across the farming clusters in Enugu.
“We also distributed other agricultural inputs that include rice and beans seedlings, cassava stem, organic fertilizer, herbicides amongst others,” Mbah said.
Earlier, the National Coordinator of NG-CARES, Dr Abdulkarim Obaje, said that over nine million Nigerians directly benefited from the programme aimed at alleviating poverty caused by the pandemic.
Obaje noted that the stakeholder states were putting a lot of their resources in the programmes, adding that the Federal Government had requested for Additional Fund of $500 million dollars from the World Bank.
“This additional $500 million dollars proposed is to ensure sustainability of the programme in the participating states.
“In spite of various challenges, many state governments have keyed into the programme. The first Independent Verification Assessment (IVA) was N77 billion, second N135. 4 billion while the third assessment was in excess of N700 billion.
“There is multiple improvement because the state governments understood what the issues were and they were able to fund the programme,” he said.
In her remarks, the Chairman, Federal CARES Technical Committee, Mrs Elizabeth Egharevba, said the programme marked important milestone for the project as the participants came together to share learnings, best practices and insights to drive progress in their shared value.
Egharevba, represented by Mr Ahmadu Mohammed, the Assistant Director Economic Relations, Federal Ministry of Finance, Abuja, said that the programme team had been working tirelessly with other stakeholders to alleviate the burdens of the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria.
“With this peer event, we can share diverse perspectives and experiences by collectively identifying solutions to complex challenges and find new ways to amplify our impact,” she said.
The NG-CARES programme is also a World Bank credit to support states and the FCT, where states are only reimbursed after independent assessment of results and verified by the Federal CARES Technical Committee of the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning.
Stakeholders from Enugu, Abia, Ebonyi, Delta, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Taraba states and Federal team participated in the experience sharing.
