By Abubakar Hassan
Nigeria Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) in Niger State have engaged 1,300 beneficiaries in its Labour Intensive Public Workfare (LIPW) component with the aim of providing immediate employment opportunities in social services and work to the beneficiaries.
The programme which is an emergency intervention targeted at improving the living standard of the poor and vulnerable in the society, is to also address the emergency constraints of loss of labour income among poor and vulnerable household as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the flagg-off of the distribution of work tools to the beneficiaries of the Niger-CARES LIPW programme, the Commissioner for Planning, Alh. Zakari Abubakar who is also the chairman of the State Steering Committee Niger-CARES said the LIPW programme was designed to engage people who were underprivileged at the community level to put their energy to use and earn a living out of it.
He recalled that in 2020 there was Covid-19 pandemic which resulted to so many people losing their jobs and sources of income, saying the LIPW programme was an attempt to cushion the impact of the pandemic in a positive manner in which the community benefit and the individual engaged also benefit.
The Commissioner also urged the beneficiaries to judiciously make use of the tools they had received, adding that the tools should ginger them more as their community will benefit from the services they will provide while as individual they will benefit from the monthly stipend giving to them.
Similarly, the Permanent Secretary of the state planning commission, Hajiya Ramatu Umar While congratulating the beneficiaries for receiving the tools said it will help them to do the work perfectly, and advise them to support themselves and their families with the little stipends they receive monthly.
The General Manager of Niger State Environmental Protection Agency (NISEPA), Mallam Habibu Abdulkadir expressed the confidence that at the end of the programme all the communities where the beneficiaries of the programme were engaged will be clean as he appealed to the state government for more of such programmes to be initiated under the agency.
He said it was not by mistake that the programme was domiciled in NISEPA because it was the agency saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that our environments were clean.
In her welcome remark, the technical head of the LIPW unit in the state, Hajiya Hauwa Kulu Usman said the programme was designed to provide immediate labour intensive work opportunities to unskilled youths from poor households contained in the state single register, adding that the programme will not only provide income to the beneficiaries but to also create and improve basic social and economic infrastructure in the communities.
She disclosed that in Niger State the programme has 1,300 beneficiaries from 13 local government areas mined from the single register, with each local government having 100 beneficiaries spread across 10 communities.
The benefiting local governments according to the technical head of the LIPW unit were Bida, Lavun, Lapai and Katcha in zone A, Bosso, Chanchaga, Rafi, Gurara and Tafa in zone B, as well as Kontagora, Mashegu, Mariga and Wushishi in zone C, adding that the beneficiaries had already received orientation on the programme and had since been deployed to their respective public work sites in their various communities and also commenced work since May, 2022.
Hajiya Hauwa Kulu who also disclosed that the beneficiaries had already received their last three months stipends had been using their personal equipment to carry out their assignment, hence the reason for the gathering which was to present work tools and personal protection kits to the beneficiaries.
She also disclosed that each of the benefiting communities will be provided with two pairs of rakes, shovels, head pans, hoes, cutlasses, safety boots, metal scoops, hand gloves and four brooms, while each beneficiary will get a jacket and two face masks, expressing optimism that with the provision of the work tools there will be improvement on the tasks carried out by the beneficiaries in their various communities.
While appreciating the state government for its support to the programme, the technical head of the LIPW unit also appealed that more funds should be channel to such kind of projects as it will go a long way in addressing youths restiveness and unemployment in the state. She equally appreciated members of the Niger-CARES steering committee, General Manager and Staff of NISEPA, as well as the staff of the Niger-CARES LIPW unit for the successes so far recorded.