FG begins second tranche of payment to 774,000 SPW participants

All seems set for the payment of the second tranche stipends of N20,000 to each of the 774,000 participants in its Special Public Works (SPW) programme.

The Federal Government disclosed this yesterday through the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo.

The government started a partial payment of N20,000 stipends to the 774,000 workers in April, three months after the programme kick-started.

Keyamo admitted that some workers under the programme were having issues about their payments from two banks, though he did not name the banks.

It was gathered that some workers having accounts with Zenith and Heritage banks had not received their first payments because the banks had not met the requirements set by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), the implementing agency for the programme.

The Minister assured the affected workers of their payments, saying everyone would be duly paid.

Keyamo said until the Bank Verification Number (BVN) of participants of the programme were verified, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would not credit those accounts.

He said: “Those who have not received payments from two banks will be paid in due time. Until the two banks fulfill the mandate we gave them to ensure the credibility of the accounts and to make sure we eliminate fraud; until that is approved by us, the CBN will not credit those accounts.

“We want to appeal to everyone, especially those who have not received their first tranche from those two banks, that they will be paid, and everybody will be duly paid before the second tranche begins. And the second tranche will begin soon.

“We don’t want to make errors in haste, especially for me. This is a programme put under my care by Mr. President. I want to make sure that it is fraud-free. That is why I am ensuring that all indices of fraud are eliminated in those accounts before they are credited.”

The SPW programme was inaugurated on January 5, 2021.