52,000 elders to benefit from Ekiti welfare scheme

MORE than 52,000 top indigenes have been enumerated for the Ekiti State Social Security Scheme billed to take off before the end of this year.Meanwhile, Governor Kayode Fayemi has charged the enumerators to ascertain the profession and economic status of the children of the proposed beneficiaries of the scheme towards ensuring that elderly people from poor homes benefit more.Fayemi exempted his aged mother from the scheme to underscore his point that the elderly indigenes that have well to do children should not be part of the scheme.The governor who visited the office of the Social Security Scheme yesterday, in company of the Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation, Mr Funminiyi Afuye and the Commisioner for Employment, Labour and Human Capital Development, Mrs Funke Fadugba, was conducted round the office by the Chairman of the Technical Sub-Committee and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Civic Orientation, Mr. Foluso Daramola where the staff were seen busy capturing the data collected from the field by the enumerators.Daramola told the governor that field enumerators comprising members of the State Volunteer Corps were sent out to the various communities to come up with accurate data on the senior citizens in the state.He explained that the questionnaire designed for the programme was to capture the personal data of the would-be beneficiaries and to enable his team identify indigent elders among those enumerated.But the governor pointed out a loophole in the exercise which he urged the technical team to look into, noting that the data collected by the enumerators did not disclose the profession of the children of the would-be beneficiaries.He said it was the tradition of an average Ekiti man to take care of their elderly ones, adding that if the jobs of the children of the would-be beneficiaries were disclosed, it would be easier for the committee to decide whether a beneficiary was indigent or not.He cited his mother as an example, pointing out that it would be wrong for his mother to be included in the scheme meant for the indigent.
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