Nasarawa State Government has commenced the distribution of palliatives to cushion the effects of economic hardship of the petroleum subsidy removal on its citizen.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Federal Government had on May 29 announced the removal of the subsidy.
Gov Abdullahi Sule, while inaugurating the distribution on Tuesday in Lafia, assured that it would be done without taking into consideration political affiliations.
According to Sule, it is the responsibility of government to take care of its citizen irrespective of their political and religion affiliations, noting the choice of locations for the distribution shows that is not a political party affair.
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Sule explained that Nasarawa State Government had received N2 billion so far out of N4 billion palliative Federal Government recommended for the state, noting that the state looks forward to receiving the balance of N2 billion.
“As far as the palliative is concerned, you have been hearing of N5 billion that is going to be given to the states, it is indeed N5 billion, but the N5 billion is not all in cash.
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“N4 billion is being given to every state and out of the N4 billion the Federal Government is going to contribute N2. 80 billion that is 52 per cent of the total amount, and the state will contribute N1.92 billion, that is the details of the amount.
“On the part of the Federal Government, it has already sent N2 billion to us, it will send the remaining N2 billion to us. But N1.92 billion of that money will be repaid to the Federal Government by the states under ISPO,” he said.
Sule stated further that the Federal Government had also allocated N1 billion worth of grains to every state.
“In addition to that, the N1 billion that you have not had is not coming in cash, the Federal Government has grains at strategic reserves all over the country, it has maize, so the N1 billion worth of maize at N25,000 per bag will be given to every state.
“Because all their monies supposed to go for food items, how do they come up with the calculation of N4 billion? What Federal Government has in mind is to buy only rice at N40,000 per bag. N100,000 bags of rice at N40,000 per bag is amount to N4 billion,” he explained.
Sule said that the state had engaged traditional and religious leaders, inter-party advisory council, youth and women groups and officials of government in the sharing arrangement to ensure success.
Speaking earlier, Sidi Bage, Emir of Lafia, thanked President Bola Tinubu and Gov. Sule for giving the palliatives to cushion hardship of the people.
(NAN)
