22nd February, 2020
The Zamfara government said it disbursed more than N56 million to 5,600 beneficiaries of its Social Intervention Programme (Z-SIP) across the state in January.
The coordinator of the programme, Alhaji Abdulhameed Mamanu, said this at a conference in Gusau.
Z-SIP is one of the N6 billion empowerment schemes introduced by Governor Bello Matawalle’s administration.
Mamanu said that the beneficiaries comprised unemployed youths and women were drawn from the 14 local government areas of the state.
“You know Matawalle introduced Z-SIP to reduce unemployment and poverty among citizens of the state.
“Each of the 56,000 beneficiaries received N10,000 last month as a monthly stipend from the state government as last,” he said.
According to him, the gesture is aimed at supporting the unemployed youths and women in the state to participate in small and medium scale businesses.
In his remark, the Secretary of the Programme, Mubarak Magaji, said as the gesture would continue every month, the state government would introduce skill acquisition programmes to train the beneficiaries various small scale trades.
Magaji noted that the aim of the programme was to ensure that youths in the state become self-reliant in future.
He said the due process was followed as directed by Gov. Matawalle in both the selection of the beneficiaries and payment.