By Dare Akogun

THE Kwara State Labour Intensive Public Workfare (LIPW), under the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) Intervention Programme, is set to deploy 1,025 beneficiaries across the 16 local government areas (LGAs) of the state.

The Commissioner for Environment Abosede Olaitan Buraimoh, while speaking with Community Development Officers (CDOs) from the 16 Local Government Councils at a meeting in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, said the development is sequel to an earlier approval by the state governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.

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The commissioner, who said the state government places much premium on the NG-CARES programme as a way of alleviating poverty in the state, urged the CDOs to complement the effort by being alive to their responsibilities.

She appreciated the CDOs and urged them to work relentlessly to ensure the success of the programme in their respective LGAs.

As intermediaries between the ministry and the LGAs, Buraimoh told the CDOs to escalate any challenge being encountered on the field to the ministry in good time, with a view to addressing such hindrances accordingly.

Earlier, the Technical Head of LIPW Delivery Platform in the state Shamsideen Aregbe, had disclosed that the the total number of youths expected to benefit from the programme has been reduced from the initial figure of 1,638 to 1,025.

He, however, assured that other beneficiaries not captured in this batch shall be given due consideration in the subsequent batches.

Speaking on the importance of attendance register, Aregbe enjoined the CDOs to further sensitize the beneficiaries on the need to take the signing of daily attendance register seriously after each day’s work.

According to him, “this is the only document that will be used to make payment at the end of the month”, stressing the importance of active participation in the daily work assigned to the beneficiaries.

It would be recalled that the NG-CARES/Labour Intensive Public Workfare, which is an initiative of the Kwara State Government with support from the World Bank, was designed for vulnerable youths and women to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic among the less privileged people in the state.

With this approval, public work activities by selected beneficiaries drawn from the Single Register of Poor and Vulnerable Households, is to commence simultaneously in all the 16 LGAs of the state with effect from next week Tuesday.

Each of the 1,025 beneficiaries would receive the sum of N10, 000 as monthly stipend.