The Minister of Community Development and Social Welfare, Emerine Kabanshi says government plans to scale up the social cash transfer program in order to alleviate poverty and reduce inequalities.
Speaking in parliament, the minister said that arising from the budgetary increase in the program, the number of households has increased from 242,000 to 590,000 homes.
Hon.Kabanshi also said that the social cash transfer scheme will target 3.4miliion of people which will constitute about 25% of the total population.
The minister further indicated that the social cash transfer budget translates to about 2% of the total 2017 national budget.
“The social cash transfer has increased from K302 million to K737 million in 2017,” she said.
The minster further said that the program which is aimed at reducing poverty and the inter-generation transfer of poverty among disabled people has had positive impacts.
She said that the beneficiaries are now able to attain education and live a health and nutritious life.
The minister also added that the ministry also trains the beneficiaries in different skills from financial literacy to environmental cleaning and adult literacy.
Hon.Kabanshi disclosed government’s plan to scale up the implementation of the program to all districts that were not at full scale to have full coverage