The Jigawa State government has denied disbursement of N193 billion in seven months to the state’s lactating women, saying the reports was a misrepresentation.
The Executive Secretary of the state Rehabilitation Board, Dr Ibrahim Rabakaya debunked the report (not The Nation) which said the state has shared over N192 billion to pregnant women and lactating mothers in the state, describing it as “distorted and misinformed”.
Rabakaya explained that “The whole annual budget of the “Cash Transfer to Pregnant Women programme” is N600 million. So I don’t know where the reporter got his story with that outrageous figure, which is higher than the state’s annual budget”.
According to him, he was misquoted by the reporter during his presentation made at a learning workshop with the Kaduna State team held in Kano State.
The ES narrated that, the “Cash Transfer” to pregnant women was initiated under the state Social Security programme aimed at tackling child malnutrition and higher rate of maternal and child mortality in the state.
He added that 20 pregnant women were selected from each of 287 political wards in the state, making a total of 5,740 beneficiaries who are receiving N4,000 monthly.
“We commenced the cash transfer in November last year 2021 and to date, we have distributed N226,740,800.00 to the beneficiaries”.
He said the state copied the cash transfer to pregnant women from the pilot project executed in three local government areas of the state by Action Against Hunger (ACF) and scaled it to all 27 LGAs.
