Government  has enumerated over 16,100 potential beneficiaries under the drought emergency shock response programme in Solwezi.

The programme aims at helping vulnerable households that have experienced crop failure due to the drought in most parts of the country.

District Social Welfare Officer, Gladys Zulu says Solwezi district was given a target of 12,000 but that 16,116 were enumerated at the end of the one-month long exercise.

In an interview with ZANIS, Ms. Zulu disclosed that sensitisation exercises has been undertaken in all the 12 wards in the district.

She said the office, however faced some challenges during enumeration as most of the would be beneficiaries especially in rural areas do not have mobile phones and were made to buy sim cards adding that this poses a risk of deactivation due to non-active usage.

Ms. Zulu added that some areas have poor or no mobile network making it difficult for potential beneficiaries to receive payments through mobile phone.

“What we discovered was that some hard to reach areas have poor or no phone network, making mobile payments not appropriate and again most rural Community Welfare Assistance Committees ( CWACS)  have no mobile booths because of bad network, ”she said.

Ms. Zulu said some areas like Kivuku, Mayonde and Mulenga have bad road network making it difficult to reach some potential beneficiaries.

She said most of the potential beneficiaries do not have National Registration Cards (NRCs) which is one of the requirements for one to be enrolled on the programme adding that this forced people to register their sim cards in other people’s names.