By Salome Gangire

Neno, February 22, Mana: At least 3,493 families are set to benefit from the Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP), popularly known as Mtukula Pakhomo, in Neno District.

The figure represents a 57 percent rise from the initial 2,006 beneficiaries who were benefiting from the programme in the district.

Speaking on Wednesday during a district consultation meeting on the re-targeting of the SCTP, Principal Social Welfare Officer in the Ministry of Gender, Given Mukisi, said the ministry is doing re-targeting as some households have graduated from poverty while compositions of other households have changed.

Mukisi said after every four years, the ministry re-targets beneficiaries as at this time, some of them have graduated out of poverty and are no longer ultra-poor.

“We do re-targeting ideally to check which households are still available, to know which households to keep on the programme, as others have graduated and others moved from the district,” Mukisi said.

She said since the programme started as a pilot in Mchinji in 2006, there has been a positive stride in the lives of beneficiaries as some of them have graduated from poverty.

“The objective of the programme is to reduce poverty and malnutrition and increase school enrolment and when we look at school enrolment, we see that household beneficiaries that are poor are now able to send their children to school,” she said.

Mukisi said the programme is targeting 10 percent of the households in the district with support from the European Union.

She added that government has now increased the amount of money beneficiaries receive with an average family of five members receiving K15,000 from the previous K9,000.

Social Welfare Officer for Neno, responsible for Social Cash Transfer, Amos Chandilanga, said the programme has had positive impact in the district.

“Some beneficiary households have acquired assets like household property, livestock, while others have built houses,” Chandilanga said.

He said it is also pleasing to note that some beneficiaries can now afford two meals a day, unlike when they were not enrolled in the programme.

He, therefore, advised the beneficiaries of the scheme to invest part of the money they receive from the programme in village savings and loans and engage in small scale business to grow the money.

One of the beneficiaries of the programme, 63-year-old Luwiza Stephano, thanked government for the intervention. However, she asked government to continue with the programme, noting that it is helping in uplifting lives of the less privileged in society.