Pan-African financial institution, Ecobank Nigeria has been appointed to assist The Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme aimed at assisting indigent and less-privileged families with monthly social subventions.

The 12 months cycle programme, which is part of Nigeria’s determination to achieve the MDGs desirable objectives before the 2015 deadline would have funds disbursed to over 56, 000 households in 600 communities in the first phase.

The bank has already deployed agent points in 600 communities/local government areas across the 24 states while product education as well as customer support services to the beneficiaries is already in progress.

24 states in Africa’s second largest economy will benefit from the scheme. The states selected for this phase are Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi, Kwara, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Sokoto, Yobe and FCT, Abuja.

Nigeria provides N187.5 million ($1.2 million) for each of these states, while the states provide a matching grant of equal amount.

“The countdown strategy as a catalytic policy of attaining the MDGs in the country, is closely linked with the government’s transformation agenda; the motive force for socio-economic transformation with the focus of making Nigeria one of the leading economies in the world by year 2020,” a statement released by Ecobank stated.

Speaking on the partnership over the weekend, Ecobank’s Managing Director, Jibril Aku, said the bank already had N6.2 billion ($38.3 million) in its coffers ready for disbursement through the Ecobank Mobile Money platform.

N5, 000 ($31) would be disbursed monthly for 12 months into the beneficiaries’ wallet while bulk-sum of N100,000 ($618) would be paid to each beneficiary at the end of the program as an exit strategy, Aku said.