The long-awaited Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme of the Federal Government commenced on Tuesday in Oyo State with the inauguration of cash disbursements by the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Alhaja Faosat Sanni.

The programme was launched at Ona Ara, Oluyole and Egbeda local government areas of the state with beneficiaries taking between N20, 000 and N30, 000 each.

It was learnt that a total of 14,000 households were being targeted under the scheme with N5,000 monthly payment.

The amount being disbursed covers arrears of four months (January to April).

A coordinator of the programme, Mr Oyekola Oladipo, said,

We started the programme today. We were to start yesterday (Monday) but we had a technical challenge; the payment agent could not be credited by the assigned payment service provider. It was very late yesterday and early this morning that the payment agents were credited.

“We went out today to do the monitoring at Ona Ara, Oluyole and Egbeda; the commissioner did the official flag off of the payment.

“The people that are being paid are existing beneficiaries that had been part of the scheme since 2016. They are not new people but those that had been assessed and had been enjoying the conditional cash transfer from 2016. They are not just manufactured because of coronavirus; they have been beneficiaries for long.

“We do not generate register; another agency working for the Federal Government did the assessment of the people.”