By Ndey Sowe
The National Nutrition Agency (NaNA) has urged the beneficiaries in targeted districts, which are to benefit from Gambia Government’s ‘NAFA Quick’ initiative Covid-19 response, to desist from lobbying for non-legal households or those without proper documentation to benefit from the aforesaid initiative.
Malang N Fofana, the Programe Manager and Project Facilitator NaNA, said the availability of proper documentation such as ID Card, Voter’s Card, Passport or Driving License, Residential Permit or Alien ID Card for non-Gambian, posed a big challenge for them.
Thus, he urged Gambians to try and make their work easier as the first phase of the ‘Nafa Quick’ initiative is expected to end this week.
“Several households tried to split this households to get more benefit based on the experience from the rice distribution by either increasing their households sizes and breaking household into small units and fraud,” he said.
The ‘Nafa Quick’ is an initiative from the Gambia government supported by the World Bank and implemented by NaNA in collaboration with Department of Social Welfare and Department of Community Development.
The project total cost is $31 million dollars, out of which one million dollars was used to bankroll the NAFA Quick initiative- by the Government of the Gambia.
Modou Cheyassin Faal, the executive Director NaNA highlighted the challenges they grappled with and the progress made in the first phrase of the implementation of the cash transfer to the beneficiaries.
With regard to the progress, Faal said the first round of payment has been done in five regions across the country and that a total of sixty nine thousand seven hundred and ninety- three registered (69, 793) households have benefited from the initiative. Of these figure, 27,470 were in URR, 12,238 in LRR, CRR with 25, 156, NBR 2, 683 and WRC with 7, 246 respectively.
Speaking further, NaNA Programe Manager cum Project Facilitator, Malang N Fofana, said they used security personnel to support them in the implementation of the COVID-19 measures.
He said they verified the eligibility of the households and ensured that all the necessary documentary requirements were fulfilled, adding details were entered into MIS and photos of the beneficiaries taken, stamped with the Nafa Quick Registration stamp for confirmation by the PSP.
Yankuba Jabbie, Director of Social Welfare, expressed his gratitude and commitment towards the implementation of the first round of the ‘Nafa Quick’ initiative.
Dr. Omat Bah, NaNA Deputy Director, clarified that the Gambia Government ‘Nafa Quick’ initiative is not for every Gambian, but only for ‘eligible households’.
NAFA Quick came amid the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and with stringent measures to prevent and contain the virus from causing hardship to many people, the Nafa Programe was restructured to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 as well as to mitigate its impact on food and nutrition security.
The initiative also aims to contribute to the mitigation of the social and economic impact of Covid-19 on the population by providing immediate universal cash transfer of D1, 500 per month (2 transfers of D3,000) with 4 months to about 83, 000 households in the 30 districts.
