Buhari asked to published names of COVID-19 cash transfer beneficiaries

President Muhammadu Buhari has been asked to publish names of beneficiaries of coronavirus palliative and funds spent on the fight against the pandemic.

The Legal Defence and Assistance Project, LEDAP, made this call in a statement by its Programmes Director, Pamela Okoroigwe on Thursday.

According to the group, “There seems to be little or no connection between the palliatives’ payment plan and areas most impacted by the COVID-19 crises. At this difficult time, it’s imperative to show transparency in the process of identification of poor households to Nigerian citizens, who are faced with the hardship in the wake of the lockdown order imposed by the Government to curb the spread of the deadly virus,” the group said.

“Media houses and grassroots civil society organizations should be carried along in this exercise as it is a matter of safeguarding the human rights and preserving the dignity of the citizens and not charity or politically driven,” LEDAP said.

“The National Assembly should rise to their responsibility as the spokespersons of the people to demand that the Federal Government presents a bill on social investment and COVID-19 palliatives, which will spell out the priority areas of the reliefs, criteria for selections and indicators for measuring success of the programme.

“To ensure transparency and boost the credibility of the Government in a dire time as this, LEDAP reiterates that the Federal Government, Office of the Special Adviser to the President on social investment, the Ministry of Finance and the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 should make available the following information:

“Detailed list of the names and addresses of those who have benefited from relief funds in whatever form whether through donations of palliatives or cash payments; “Detailed action plans on the mode of distribution of funds, locations for further distributions,

“A breakdown of the total amount of donations received in cash and materials from all sectors and how much has been spent so far on the relief palliatives and;

“Detailed plans to provide relief for the rest of the over 80 million of the country’s poorest spread across the 36 states of the Federation and the FCT inclusive.

“LEDAP urges the Federal Government to act swiftly in implementing the above recommendations as a sign of good faith and in turn win the trust and confidence of its people, we believe that if we all play our respective parts effectively, we will collectively defeat this global scourge.”