The ruling party rode to power on the strength of many promises, one of which was the Conditional cash transfer which aimed at giving the sum of =N=5,000 monthly to the country’s poorest and most vulnerable group. No doubt, the thought process that led to this initiative is commendable giving the abject poverty of some citizens which has seen the country being ranked among the poorest country in the world.

Indeed, the idea was in keeping with similar practices in some countries like India, Brazil and Pakistan where some form of social investment schemes have been put together to assist desperately poor citizens and enhance their living conditions.

As will be expected, the envisaged gains from this idea cannot be over emphasized; it will facilitate financial inclusion especially for the unbanked populace given that payments will be effected through the banks, it will bring some form of relief to recipients’, it will enable the compilation of social registers which could be deployed for other social intervention schemes, it is a way of getting out of recession as disbursed funds of =N=5 billion monthly for the envisaged 1 million poor Nigerians will trickle down and impact the local economy positively and in the long run, it has capacity to change the poverty story and dynamics of Nigeria given that about =N=60 billion will be spent on this laudable program annually.

Now, I want to state right away that it is not my intension here to pass judgement on the propriety or otherwise of this initiative at this time but to address some pertinent issues that may crystalize from its implementation and jeopardize its essence.

While announcing the commencement of the CCT scheme via a statement issued by Laolu Akande on the 3rd of January, 2017, the spokesman for the Vice president stated that the scheme started last week in 9 states and some beneficiaries have confirmed receiving these funds. For a start, he stated that there are verified records of the poorest individuals in these states that will benefit in the 1st batch of the exercise, disclosing that the States; Borno, Ogun, Kwara, Ekiti, Kogi, Bauchi, Cross River, Niger & Oyo were picked because they have an existing social register which have been verified by world bank consultants using community-based targeting methods. Other states, he said, will come on board as soon as their registers are ready.

Some have expressed doubts as to the sustenance of this scheme given that President Muhammed Buhari-led Federal government had other SIPs like N-power volunteer corps, Homegrown school feeding program and government enterprise & empowerment program (GEEP) to also cater for having kick started their implementations in various forms and considering the paucity of funds occasioned by the significant fall in the price of our major revenue earner. But my take on this fear is that, there will always be a way where there is requisite political will to pull through a scheme as this. For instance, savings could be made from the recently proposed luxury tax which will go a long way in funding the project, drastic reduction in the cost of governance which will see the elimination of the position of all kinds of ‘special advisers & Personal assistants’ could equally enable some savings to fund the scheme.

My major worry is the criteria for identifying these poorest of the poor in our midst given that the compilation and even the subsequent verification of the social register will be done with politicians at various levels acting as some form of superintendents over these exercises. We all know what our politicians are capable of doing to satisfy primordial interests and their penchant to see schemes like this as opportunities’ for patronage to ‘boys’ for ‘job’ well done. I therefore suggest that non-governmental bodies, social advocacy groups and civil society organizations’ be enlisted to compile these very important registers.

Again we need to consider the time between when this promise was made and the period of implementation to be able to ascertain if the stipend’s value has not been eroded by some variables in the intervening period. Figures from the National bureau of statistics shows that the inflationary rate has increased from 9.6% to 14.54% within these said periods and so the value of the =N=5,000 stipend in real terms putting the resultant obvious gross erosion in value into consideration is definitely less than the initial sum.

I agree that it is better to have something at hand than nothing but I also believe that scenarios like this should be avoided to enable full benefit of social investment schemes like this. There is need for prospective aspirants to positions of authority to fully be aware of situation of things on ground and to calculate the cost implications and relevant structures/resources before making promises to prevent placing carts before the horse as being demonstrated by the undue delay in take-off of this laudable program.

Finally, there is need for second level authentication or independent confirmation mechanism to establish that these funds actually gets to the designated people; we can successfully run this scheme without having the plagues of ghost beneficiaries in attendance as we have seen on our payrolls.

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