The team made up of 196 Ward Development Officers (WDOs) and 25 local government liaison Officers to cover the 196 political wards in the state.
The State Coordinator of the Programme, Dr. Edem Okokon Effiom, disclosed this while answering questions from LEADERSHIP.
Effiom, who spoke after the training workshop in Calabar for the Southern Senatorial District stated that the exercise would be replicated across the three senatorial districts, beginning with the Southern, then Central and Northern districts.
He said, “The training will seek to build the capacity of the Ward Development Officers to help them efficiently identify the various social strata that abound within the 196 council wards.”
Effiom stressed that the training would equip the officers to better implement government policy at the grassroots level adding that it “would put the WDOs in a better position to administer the governor’s ‘people first’ mantra, especially as it pertains to creating a social safety net for the vulnerable and hard -to-reach people.”
Meanwhile, 87 persons have been trained at the weekend in Calabar for the Southern Senatorial District, comprising 78 WDOs and nine local government liaison Officers.
The coordinator revealed that 150 persons per ward will benefit from the scheme, stressing that “100 beneficiaries would be through direct cash transfer while 50 would be through one-off empowerment.”
He stressed that beneficiaries would be drawn from across the wards irrespective of political affiliation, including churches and the Muslim community.
