October 21, 2019
By Ibrahim Tarawallie
The National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) says a total of 28,538 extremely poor and vulnerable households in ten (10) districts benefited from cash transfers under the Social Safety Net project.
According to the Deputy Commissioner, Dr. Sao-Kpato Max-Kyne, 92% of the aforementioned numbers were women because they form the greatest part of very poor households, whilst 23% were persons with disabilities.
She disclosed that under the project, they were required to provide cash transfers to 48, 038 extremely poor and vulnerable households across the districts between 2018 and 2019.
She told the bilateral budget discussions that service providers like Rokel Commercial Bank were used in delivering the cash transfers service to the beneficiaries.
“Under the reparations program, we were able to service 11, 137 beneficiaries with 100% of them women because the project was geared towards supporting war widows and those who were violated during the civil conflict,” she said.
With a mandate to promote community based- demand driven and sustainable development activities leading to the alleviation of poverty, Dr. Max-Kyne stated that they focused on five specific areas- social protection, youth employment, education and health, energy and transport.
She added that in their work, they have ensured that those areas highlighted are aligned with the government’s medium term development framework and the ‘New Direction’ agenda.
She continued that for youth employment, they were to reach 5,000 rural youth in Kono, Kailahun, Koinadugu and Falaba districts respectively, with the construction of infrastructure.
Because of additional funding from donors, Dr. Max-Kyyne said they were able to exceed their target with the provision of temporal employments for 13, 138 rural youth with 11% of them women under the GPC and employment promotion programs.
She added that the employment provided were from rice, cocoa and coffee rehabilitation, as well as garbage collection.
For health and education, the deputy commissioner noted that they were required to do nine (9) primary and junior secondary schools and eight (8) community health posts with 10 sets of public latrines.
“We have been able to complete seven (7) primary schools and two (2) junior secondary schools. The remaining schools will be completed this October. We have three modern health facilities completed and five at an advance stage,” she disclosed.
Earlier, Commissioner Abu B. Kokofele disclosed that an additional $30million has been received for the Social safety Net project running from 2019 to 2023.