The Kwara State Subsidy Palliative Committee says about two hundred and thirty thousand people across the one hundred and ninety three wards of the state have benefited from each of 10kg bags of rice distributed to cushion the hardship, which fuel subsidy removal precipitated.
A member of the state Subsidy Palliative Committee, Dr Saudat Abdulbaqi, disclosed in Ilorin this while answering questions from newsmen.
She said the committee ensured that the food stuff was distributed to the vulnerable people in the society.
Dr Abdulbaqi, who is a member of the Governing Council of the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), maintained that the committee screened the list generated from each ward through the local government areas to ensure that the palliative rice reaches the poorest of the poor in the society.
She disclosed that the palliative rice was meant for the first phase, while the committee had commenced distribution of subsidized maize in the second phase of the programme to poultry farmers to alleviate the sufferings of the masses and reduce the prices of poultry products.
Also speaking, another member of the Committee, Mrs Binta Abubakar Mora, noted that the distribution of the palliative rice was strictly monitored across the nooks and crannies of the state for transparency and even distribution of the item.
Binta Mora emphasised that the maize for poultry farmers is not free but subsidized, saying that the beneficiaries were carefully scrutinized while the payments are made through the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service.
In his remarks in a related interview, the Permanent Secretary General Services, Governor’s Office and Secretary of the Subsidy Palliative 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 subsidized maize.
Ameen explained that there was no preferential treatment in the choice of the beneficiaries, saying that they pass through a laid down process for them to be captured.
