By Adekola Afolabi,
News Editor &
Emmanuel Oluwadola

 More citizens of Ondo State including vulnerable people in private organisations will benefit from another phase of palliatives distribution which will begin this week.

The State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mrs Bamidele Ademola-Olateju who revealed this on Tuesday while speaking with The Hope, also said no vulnerable citizen will be left out in the distribution.

The state image maker noted that at least 200 bags of rice were distributed to the vulnerable citizens in each local government during the just concluded second phase, except Akure South which collected higher because of a larger population.

She confirmed that more people will also smile and benefit from the government gesture during this festive season as government will roll out another palliatives which will continue till December ending and even after.

According to her, food items such as rice, beans, semovita, yam flour, garri, pupuru, among others will be distributed to vulnerable people in registered organisations in the state.

“We are hoping that something will happen towards this Christmas period to make the people smile. Every organization has vulnerable people struggling. We are going to distribute these items to people in all organisations including private sector in the state,” she said.

Speaking on how the committee is monitoring the process for effective distribution to the real beneficiaries, the commissioner stressed that representatives of the people including First Class traditional rulers were involved to oversee the distribution to promote a sense of belonging.

“What we did was to expand the committee responsible for the whole process. We include the executive members, the elected representatives of the people, House of Assembly members, traditional rulers, reputable First Class Obas, representatives of Civil Society Organisations, representatives of religious bodies, representatives of Market men and women, among other groups. 

“This is bringing a sense of belonging. We make sure we include women as part of the community leaders to encourage equality. The process has been peaceful. We involved more people to mitigate uneven distribution,” the commissioner stressed.

She added that for primary schools distribution, relevant bodies who understand the system like representatives from SUBEB, education officers/secretaries in local governments would be engaged.

 Ademola-Olateju who disclosed that government recorded success stories in the previous distribution, also added that about 60,000 bags of rice are still being expected from the Federal Government.

In addition to the rice distribution, she said food packs and items such as semovita, garri, yam flour, pupuru and beans from several companies have been paid for by the state government.

Mrs Bamidele assured that for the indomie distribution to primary school pupils, government wants all the 10,000 cartons ready before distribution.

“We don’t want to push them out in batches. We want to distribute them at once to all our school pupils in public primary schools. But for private schools we will look into it in our next committee meeting. We want people to be happy and get something in their hands. We are going to give two packs to every primary school pupil from primary one to six, including their teachers.

On the free shuttle busses for school children, the commissioner disclosed that the state government was happy to see thousands of students benefiting from the palliative, thereby making parents to save at least N1,000 on each child everyday.

“She explained that the state government is particularly excited and happy about the impact of the free transportation for students, describing it as the most successful one.