The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, has said that her office will probe the activities of the former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq.
According to Edu in an interview on Wednesday, the ministry will operate on transparency and so it’ll start by reviewing the social register.
She said, “We’ll look at all the programmes that were done by the previous administration. What their achievements and challenges were, how money was spent and we’ll do our best to see that these challenges are overcome as we go into improving and expanding on the social safety net of our country.
“History is important. It’ll help direct, help inform our decisions for the present and for the future. It’s important for us to look into the books.”
On the social register, she said, “We’ll go back to it and look at it in detail and verify that these people are truly the ones we intend to reach. It’s a new administration and we don’t underestimate the work done by the World Bank and the Office of the National Safety Net.
“However, we need to be very critical of what we’re doing because Nigerians are watching and people will be held accountable”, Edu said.
She added, “President Bola Tinubu truly wants these interventions to get to those who sincerely need it. Some governors have raised concerns and this is just the right way to go about it.
“The register must be verified and updated. The people who don’t deserve to be there based on criteria
Those who are truly poor by the criteria, and deserve to be on the social register will be included. No one will be left behind. The most important is that we must work with the state and local governments to be able to get a true social register for our country.
“I listened to some of the presentations just started at the different departments, units and agencies and some of the things I could pick out was the fact that some of the registrations were done truly and however, the involvement of the state government and in some cases local governments was not robust as it should be.
“We’ll ensure that we have the right register that we can implement properly and hold people accountable so that truly poor people are lifted out of poverty,” she said.
