The Kwara State Subsidy Palliative Committee has said that no fewer than 230,000 people across the 193 wards in the state have benefited from the 10kg bags of rice distributed to cushion the hardship precipitated by the removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government.
Dr. Saudat Salah-Abdulbaqi, a committee member, revealed this in Ilorin, the state capital, during a performance on the Thursday “Matters Arising” Radio Kwara program.
According to her, the committee made sure that the food was given to the weaker members of society.
To make sure that the palliative rice reaches the most impoverished members of society, Abdulbaqi, a member of the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations’ governing board, insisted that the committee vetted the list created from each ward via the Local Government Areas.
She said that the committee had started distributing subsidized maize to poultry farmers in the second phase of the program, which would lessen the pain of the populace and lower the cost of chicken products. She also revealed that the palliative rice was intended for the first phase.
Speaking further, Mrs. Binta Abubakar-Mora, a committee member, pointed out that the palliative rice distribution was closely supervised across the state’s intricacies to ensure fairness and equitable dissemination of the commodity.
Mora emphasized that the maize provided to chicken farmers is subsidized rather than free, and that the recipients were closely examined during the payment process, which was handled by the state’s Internal Revenue Service.
In his contribution to the programme, the Permanent Secretary, General Services, Governor’s Office and Secretary of the committee, Mr. AbdulRahman Ameen, added that the committee met with key stakeholders, especially genuine farmers for the collation of names of their members to benefit from the subsidised maize.
Ameen explained that there was no preferential treatment in the choice of the beneficiaries, saying that they passed through a laid-down process for them to be captured.
