The Akwa Ibom government says no fewer than 600,000 households have been captured in the social register for its various intervention programmes aimed at ameliorating economic hardship.

The commissioner for economic development, Emem Bob, said this during the ministerial briefing in Uyo on Monday.

The ministerial briefing is tagged; “ARISE Score Card’’ with the theme “Food Sufficiency and Security: The Intervention and Sustainability Strategy of Gov. Umo Eno”.

Mr Bob said though the state social register had increased to 2.3 million people, the government was reaching out to the vulnerable poor through 600,000 households captured in the social register.

“The social register is well-structured. It’s structured in such a way that we have broken the villages, wards and Local  Government Areas.

“These make up the state social register and the total number of people we have in the social register is 2.3 million.

“When you talk about households, we have about 600,000 households in the social register and that is what we have been using for various interventions in the state,” Mr Bob said.

The commissioner said that the process for selection into the social register was very clear and transparent.

Mr Bob said that the social register had been there for the past eight years, saying that the governor only ordered that it should be expanded to accommodate those who had fallen under the poverty line.

“How people are selected for the social register is very clear. It is a very transparent process in the sense that there is what we call Community-Based Targeting.

“Don’t forget that anything that involves the World Bank is very transparent; they are thorough.

“Community-Based Targeting is what was used for social register, and we have state organising coordinating units which work with the National Social Safety Nets Coordinator Unit in Abuja.

“They work together and they have staff across the local governments. They go to villages, meet with village heads to pick these people,” he said.

The commissioner for agriculture, Offiong Ofor, said the state government had put in place a lot of intervention programmes to boost food production and reduce the prices of foodstuffs in the state.

Mr Offor urged the people to heed the governor’s call and return to farming, saying that farmers should form themselves into cooperative groups for easy accessibility.

“Food sustainability remains the priority of Gov. Eno’s administration. The first thing is that the Ministry of Agriculture merged with the Ministry of Rural Development, which also has a component of cooperatives.

“This was deliberate because the cooperative system is the system that is driving food productivity anywhere in the world,” Mr Offor said. 

(NAN)