President Buhari has ordered the release of confiscated bags of rice to citizens as relief package amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down economies worldwide.
The minister of finance, budget and national planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this while fielding questions from journalists at a news conference in Abuja on Monday.
This comes after the minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, Sadiya Farouq, stated that the Federal Government had started conditional cash transfer to help the most vulnerable to economic hardship in the country during this pandemic.
The current news conference was on the fiscal stimulus measures in response to COVID-19 pandemic and oil prices fiscal shock. Ahmed said the seized trucks of rice had been handed over to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management for onward distributions to Nigerians.
According to the minister, more measures will be taken to provide broader benefits to citizens. “We don’t want to rush and announce measures that will end up benefiting only a few of the segments. Our interest is to make sure that as much as possible a lot of Nigerians are productive and have liquidity in their hands.
This will help to increase consumption thereby assist to improve the economy. This is not something we will announce in a hurry without consulting with the central ministry and also without consulting with the key participants in the sector,” the minister said.
This new development is coming not long after Nollywood icon, popularly called RMD, took to his Instagram page to call out the Nigerian Customs Services over seized food items in their warehouses. RMD suggested that the government should distribute the food to the poor at this time. It seems that either the was thinking along the same line or they just took the Nollywood actor’s advice.
Now, what is remaining is a sound implementation of the policy, which hopefully should go without hitch or favouritism.
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