FGN Cash Transfer In Ekiti: Setting The Record Straight

This is surely a season of peace and not to fight any battle. Assumption, they say, is the least form of thinking. Calling out a government that is doing its very best in providing adequate welfare for its people in a season locked down by coronavirus, is not good political calculation at all. Rather,  it shows that the propagandists peddling such lies are mindless agonisers who love to cry wolf wherever and whenever there is none.
How on earth would an opposition that claimed to have taken care of the welfare of the people while in government, now claim to be ignorant of the process of doing so, no sooner it dropped power? It is either the PDP goons in Ekiti have very short memory or their kingpin feigned the love it claimed to have for the same people while in power between 2014 and 2018.
Well, not necessarily for those hyenas crying wolf now, but for those who may have bought into their lies are we putting the records straight:  The programme is none other than the same Federal Government Cash Transfer Programme, which actually started in year 2016 while the PDP held sway in Ekiti. It is directed at the poorest of the poor in our society with the aim of taking them away from the poverty base line. 
At the advent of JKF 2.0, His Excellency, Dr. John Kayode Fayemi, a welfarist par excellence, from whom the Federal Government actually got the same concept, revisited the programme by creating the Department of Social lnvestment Program to oversee the Cash Transfer and other Components. 
When COVID-19 reared its ugly head and made our people vulnerable, Mr President directed that the beneficiaries of the programme in every state of the federation, whose names had been compiled since 2016, should be paid four (4) months of the stipend (from January to April 2020).
Going by the compilation made by the PDP government in 2016, there were 4,700 of such beneficiaries on the Ekiti list. Almost half of those on the list were also being paid some extra called Top up, meaning that they were earning double of what the FG prescribed. The top up is for those who were either pregnant or with children of between 0-5 years of age. The extra amount was meant to access medical facilities.
However, Gov. Fayemi promised to increase Ekiti beneficiaries from the initial 5,000 to 16,000. If his predecessor had taken the programme serious from the beginning, the way Fayemi is doing now, the number wouldn’t have remained static at 5,000. After all, a State like Bauchi is paying 100,000 persons. And it would have been officially flagged off at inception. But because it was grudgingly accepted, sneaked in and manipulated by the PDP government, there was no flag off, and no names were added to the list. 
Despite that the initial list was generated by his predecessor, Gov. Fayemi has also refused to drop any name, party affiliation, notwithstanding. His argument is that they’re all Ekiti sons and daughters after all. Rather, he plans to increase the list from 5,000 to 16,000!
The flag-off ceremony which took place at Fajuyi Pavilion, Ado-Ekiti, signaled the commencement of the cash transfer at designated pay points across the 16 local government in the state. Also, it came barely 24 hours after the state government commenced the distribution of food items to indigent people in the state to cushion the effect of the lockdown.
Dr Fayemi said each beneficiary would receive between N20,000 and N60,000 which is a four months’ arrears from January to April, 2020.
According to him, “This is not the first cash transfer we are doing in the State, this has been a programme that has been going on for a little while, since 2016 but this is the first major public show of the things we have been doing quietly as a state which is part of the larger National Social Investment Programme that the President Mohamadu Buhari administration started and this State has been part of it,” adding: “All these efforts of the government are geared towards making life easy for Ekiti citizens to live happily and well during this difficult time. I want to assure you that this administration is a caring government that put the people at the centre of all their plans.”
The Governor seized the opportunity to remind the benefitting households that the programme is called Household Uplifting Programme (HUP) and hence all members of the household must benefit from the cash. He advised them to make judicious use of the money during this period as government was on top of the Covid-19 situation in the state.
The cynics should recall that the programme was a component of the Social Investment Programme, a baby birthed by Governor Fayemi during his first term as Ekiti State Governor and was later adopted by the federal government. It includes Social Security Programme for the Elderly (Owo Arugbo); Conditional Cash Transfer, Government Enterprises Employment Project (GEEP) and others. It is not a one-off affair as the critics insinuated. The beneficiary households would keep receiving the money on a regular basis and government would ensure that more people benefit from the largesse.
Neither was it possible to have made the payments across the whole state in just one day as the propagandists claim. It actually started on Tuesday 7 April 2020 in Ado Ekiti where it was flagged off by the governor and it is being taken to other Local Governments from Wednesday, the following day. As at the close of work yesterday, Thursday 9 April 2020, 330 beneficiaries had been paid in Ado LGA, 138 in Efon LGA, 173 in Oye LGA, 239 in Ido/Osi LGA, while payments in Ekiti West, Ijero, Ikole and other LGAs will be completed as soon as possible.
To allege that all payments were made on the same day, and went into wrong hands, is to be thinking from the mindset of the PDP government that administered it between 2016 and 2018. This of course is uncharitable, mischievous and satanic. May the good Lord forgive the propagandists, while the good work by Dr. John Kayode Fayemi continue in Ekiti State.
Segun Dipe, Special Senior Assistant, Public Communications