Zonal Coordinator, Delta South Senatorial District of the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P), Alhaji Isa Clark, says the programme has empowered 1,080 poor people in the Niger Delta.
Clark said in Asaba that the 1,080 persons were empowered under the Community Services Women and Youths Employment (CSWYE) of SURE-P.
He said that the beneficiaries were drawn from eight local government areas of the zone, adding that there had not been any programme in the past that impacted the poor as much as the SURE-P.
“In my zone a total of 1,080 persons have been engaged under the CSWYE in the short period in both the pilot and the first ramp-up of the programme. The services being rendered by these people include cleaning of market places, hospitals and healthcare centres, traffic control, vigilance, among others,’’ Clark said.
The coordinator lauded President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration for the initiative and called for its sustenance.
He, however, called for full removal of subsidy on petrol products, saying that it would lead to empowering the poor more, as demonstrated in the partial subsidy removal.
“If the SURE-P project succeeds, it will encourage the full removal of the oil subsidy. “By every assessment of the partial removal of oil subsidy, the programme is succeeding and if sustained, Nigerians will be pleased to have a full implementation of subsidy removal,’’ he said.
The coordinator said that unless the poor were empowered, government’s vision 20:2020 might not be well realised.
