By CHATULA KAMPO –
THE Social Welfare Department says it will ensure that no ‘ghost beneficiaries’ are included in the social cash transfer programme.
The social transfer scheme is a Government programme being implemented by the Ministry of Community Development Mother and Child Health through the social welfare department to help empower vulnerable families as a way of reducing poverty levels in Zambia.
Incapacitated families from the rural districts would be entitled to a bi-monthly salary of K140 while identified households with severe disability members would get K280.
Senior Social officer Mamzuzo Zulu said the programme was transparent and that only eligible people would benefit from the programme.
Mr Zulu said the department was working with the community to ensure that no ‘ghost beneficially’ or those that were already being assisted by other institution were included in the programme.
“We are not the ones selecting the beneficiaries, the process is very long, communality members are the ones that will select incapacitated families to benefit from this programme, they are the ones that have full knowledge of the people to be helped,”  he said.
He said this during a stakeholders meeting at the council chambers at the civic centre in Ndola yesterday.
Officials from the department are in the province to get views from stakeholders on how the programme can help to reduce poverty in Zambia.
Mr Zulu said the method the department was using to identify people to benefit would take long to ensure that only eligible people benefit from the programme.
He said the department had received over 100,000 applications across the country and that some would be sieved out after community validation.
He said that the department would roll the scheme to incapacitated families in urban areas like Ndola and Kitwe where only families with members with severe disability were benefiting.