THE gesture was to celebrate this year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty as recognized by the United Nations (UN) with the theme, "Building Forward Together: Ending Persistence Poverty, Respecting all People and our Planet".
The Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs. Cecilia Dada, said: “Food has become very expensive by 70 percent for most Nigerians. In over one year now, beans, a common commodity for the average Nigerian, has risen to three times its former price. Shall we say the dollar rate affects our local foods too? I will say poverty is not solely an economic issue but, rather, our individual problems that disturb our means of earning a livelihood.
“Therefore, it is important for us as a responsive government to address the poverty in our noble state by introducing empowerment programmes to support indigents and vulnerable women in line with our ministry’s vision to sustainably reduce poverty in Lagos State.
“There is a social register with the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget from which we pick beneficiaries whenever we have programmes like this. The register contains names of indigent Lagosians who need government’s intervention.
“We have a monitoring department in the ministry and agents in the local governments to ensure beneficiaries do the right thing, and also to measure our success and impacts.”
The commissioner urged the beneficiaries to make good use of the opportunity.