Only 907 of 14,021 exited N-Power volunteers received stipends – Beneficiaries accuse FG

Some exited volunteers of the N-Power scheme have accused the Federal Government of paying just 907 of 14,021 their outstanding stipends.

The former volunteers, according to a statement by their spokesperson, Comrade Ridwan, claimed they were owed five months outstanding allowance by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.

Ridwan lamented their reality was in contrast to the 9,066 figure released by the Ministry last Friday.

The Ministry, in a statement by its Permanent Secretary, Mr. Bashir Alkali, had indicated the Federal Government in March 2020, flagged the accounts of 14,021 volunteers on the Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), due to a number of anomalies that were observed.

The statement added the beneficiaries had multiple accounts, receiving other payments such as salaries and allowances from multiple Federal Government Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) on permanent employment or participating in other schemes which “violate the regulations guiding the N-Power volunteer programme and could amount to gross misconduct and corruption.”

It added: “The ministry carried out a detailed investigation in collaboration with relevant government MDAs, disclosing that so far, the accounts of 9,066 volunteers were cleared for final payment.”

But Ridwan accused the Ministry of hastily initiating payment afterwards to 907 of the affected beneficiaries to avert a protest that was later held in Abuja on Monday, “and had since stopped the payment.”

He maintained all the affected beneficiaries have not been fully paid.

Ridwan said: “We were shocked and bewildered and perturbed to have noticed that, the purported payment was made to only 907, which is just 6% of all the affected Beneficiaries and not to 9,066 verified accounts of the Beneficiaries, as claimed by the Ministry in its press release.

“We strongly condemn the hanky-panky and delay tactic deployed by the Ministry of Humanitarian in the payment of our five months outstanding allowances after 11-month that we submitted our Bank Statements, for verification to the Ministry. The delay in the payment of our outstanding stipends, has left majority of us in untold hardships”

The beneficiaries, however, called on the Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq to look into the complaint and effect the payment of remaining 13,411 of the beneficiaries’ verified accounts.