Some enrollees of the Federal Government’s N-Power programme, protested against the non-payment of their four months’ salaries by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, on Monday.
Although the government, while responding to an enquiry on the matter, stated that it would settle the beneficiaries this week, some of the affected persons alleged that the humanitarian ministry seem to have abandoned them.
They displayed placards on social media demanding that the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, should pay the N-Power Stream C-2 enrollees their four months pay.
N-Power is one of the Federal Government’s National Social Investment Programme. It is a job creation programme with graduate and non-graduate components.
Figures obtained from the humanitarian ministry in Abuja, indicated that the programme had enrolled 200,000 youths in Batch A; 300,000 in Batch B; 510,000 in Batch C1; and 490,000 in Batch C2.
“We have not been paid for four months and no one is saying anything about it. Have they abandoned us or what,” one of the enrollees, who pleaded not to be named to avoid being victimised, told our correspondent.
Another beneficiary of the scheme said they had been calling on the ministry to settle the N30,000 monthly stipend being paid to N-Power enrollees, “but it is like all our calls have been falling on deaf ears.”
But the Federal Government said it was working on the demands of the enrollees, stressing that the payments would be settled this week.
N-Power beneficiaries get N30,000 monthly and many of them teach in primary schools owned by the Federal Government across the country.
“They’re (humanitarian ministry) working on their payment. They should get it this week,” the Special Assistant to the Humanitarian Minister, Nneka Anibeze, told our correspondent.
The ministry also stated that it had enrolled the services of 7,500 independent monitors across the 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria to support in monitoring the National Social Investment Programmes, including the N-Power scheme.
It said it received the support of an international nongovernmental organisation – Save the Children, and 18 civil society organisations as third-party monitors.
“They provide an additional layer of monitoring for the programmes. The ministry carries out routine monitoring across the country on a quarterly basis. Impact assessments are carried out on a periodic basis to measure the effectiveness of these programmes,” the humanitarian ministry explained.
SOURCE: THE PUNCH
