Last updated on July 21st, 2021 at 07:26 am
A former beneficiary of the N-Power programme Ingawa S. Ahmad has accused officials of the National Social Investment programme of looting five months unpaid backlogs.
Ahmad made the allegation Thursday when reacting to the update about the Batch C on the Twitter page of Nneka Ikem, media aide to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development Sadiya Umar Farouq .
He tweeted:
“That means our 5 months unpaid stipend has been successfully looted by your boss . There is God oooo”
14,200 beneficiaries are in the backlog pool, they are expected to be paid N2.1 Billion in all, which the minister promised three times but failed.
Before the batch A and B volunteers were officially exited, the minister promised that outstanding stipends would be cleared.
A few months after, it was gathered that the minister came up with another excuse why they’ve not been paid.
Specifically, on October 27, 2020, she hinted that “the delay in the payment of the arrears arose due to platform migration from NIBSS to GIFMIS by the Office of Accountant General of the Federation in March 2020.”
She said that “it is possible that the 14,200 beneficiaries used their NYSC allowance bank accounts for N-Power and GIFMIS payment platform picked them for double payment.”
She promised that her ministry has initiated State verification process with State N-Power Focal Officers.
“The 14,200 affected beneficiaries will present their NYSC certificates for final verification after which we will present an updated list to OAGF to pay off their 5 months arrears,” she tweeted, promising that, “All legitimate claims and those on verified list will be paid before the end of the year (2020).”
Another failed promise
The year 2020 ended, as usual, the 14,200 beneficiaries complained that they were not paid.
Each of the affected persons are expecting N150,000 from the federal government.
In what looked like a relief on January 2, 2021, the minister’s aide took to Twitter, promising that the await is over.
“Are you among the 14,200 N-Power beneficiaries awaiting their backlog of stipends? Rejoice for the inquiry is over now. Good news, she tweeted.
Update Backlash
On Thursday, March 11, 2021, when Ikem tweeted an update about the batch C screening, some of the former beneficiaries who were owed five months backlog flooded her tweet with the complaint.
See some of them below:
“Batch C when we were not yet being paid our backlogs of outstanding stipends to disengaged npowers beneficiary’s Batch And B since March 2020” – IK
“What about batch A and B? when are we getting our money to start up a business…since you guys disengaged us is been difficult for us… please we need immediate action to attend to batch A and B” John Eyetowa
“Funny set of people with bunch of http://lies.You never rounded up the exit package for batches A and B, you are still owing 14200 @npower_ng beneficiaries 150 000 naira each.Fear http://Allah.You disappointed the youths, disgrace to us.”
“We had that Nexit will be close tomorrow what is fate of those that owed 5 months backlogs” – Sani
“Former Handler Did Better”
Meanwhile, a Twitter user, Oluwasanmi has berated the manner in which the minister and his aides are handling the youth empowerment programme.
“The original handlers of the programme exhibited sheer respect for humanity but the current handlers are laden with impunity and overly aggressive. Posterity awaits all of you,” he tweeted.
The N-SIP programme was formerly domiciled in the office of the Vice President assisted by Afolabi Imoukhuede who was famous for showing high level of transparency by holding regular social media chat with beneficiaries.
That has since stopped since President Muhammadu Buhari moved the N-SIP programme to the new ministry headed by Sadiya Farouq.
At InfomediaNG, we hope the complaints of former beneficiaries would be attended to.
Please notify me sir.