The National Economic Council (NEC) has proposed that cash transfer programmes be implemented by state governments using state-generated social registers.

This is to soften the harsh economic realities since the discontinuance of petrol subsidy on May 29.

This is different from the National Social Register, which, as of 2023, has captured over 61 million vulnerable Nigerians eligible for various government social programmes.

The implementation, NEC also proposed, would be based on the individual capacity and priority of various states.

Governors of Anambra, Prof. Charles Soludo, Ogun, Dapo Abiodun; Bauchi, Bala Mohammed and Acting CBN Governor, Folashodun Shonubi, revealed this to State House Correspondents after Thursday’s National Economic Council meeting held Chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.

The NSR is a repository of information about potential beneficiaries for multiple social assistance programmes with a common population of interest but not necessarily the same eligibility approach.

But addressing journalists, Abiodun said states-generated register “is aimed at enhancing the integrity and reliability of the NSR and ensuring that resources go to the intended beneficiaries.”

He explained, “We also proposed accordingly that each state should begin to plan towards implementing a cash transfer programme that will be based on their social register of the states because it is the states that are better positioned to do that enumeration to ensure the integrity of the social register.”

The NEC also proposed the implementation of a cash award policy for all public servants.

The six-month cash award policy, Abiodun said, would allow subnational entities to pay their public servants a prescribed amount of cash monthly.