FG plans direct credit to vulnerable citizens through BVN

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has said the Federal Goverment, through the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office, is developing a Rapid Response Register to quickly scale up the enrolment of poor and vulnerable citizens.

She said this at the Open Government Partnership 2020 Virtual Leaders Summit Roundtable.

The event was to advance discourse and innovation around open response and open recovery measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to her, data for the register are being sourced through primary and secondary sources, including the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System and the National Communication Commission database on mobile phone users.

In order to ensure transparency as well as mitigate corruption risks, the Minister said that payments would be made directly to the accounts of the individuals, using their Bank Verification Numbers.

Speaking on the Federal Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, the minister said, “Our response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been proactive, people-oriented and aimed at averting drastic economic decline and protecting our most vulnerable citizens.”

The minister added that the government was currently implementing a multi-sector economic sustainability plan.

According to her, a key priority for government is to deploy funds transparently, and in a targeted and efficent manner that maximises the impact, in keeping with the government’s commitment under the OGP national action plan.

She said, “This is especially important given our limited fiscal space and low domestic revenues.

“To this end, in addition to existing OGP measures around budgeting, citizens’ engagement, open contracting, anti-corruption and others, we have introduced measures to sustainability enhanced fiscal prudence and transparency.”

She explained further that Government had also established a technology-enabled result-based performance management framework to track expenditures under the ESP, including the fiscal stimulus package and other government interventions.