Keyamo: FG to Disburse Outstanding N7.3bn to Public Works Beneficiaries Dec

Deji Elumoye and Juliet Akoje in Abuja

The federal government, yesterday, promised to pay the outstanding N7.3 billion to the remaining beneficiaries of its Special Public Works Programme introduced last year.

Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, disclosed this during budget defence session before the Senate Committee on Labour.

The programme, domiciled in the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), engaged 774,000 Nigerians across the country to carry out public works for three months and beneficiaries were to be N60,000 each.

Keyamo attributed the delay to bank issues but promised that the remaining fund would be disbursed before the end of December this year, adding that limited banks were selected for the programme to ease audit process.

“Why we insisted on certain banks was because of auditing process. This is so that we have a clear audit instead of us chasing banks all over the place. We said the bank should use their local branches to ensure that those 1,000 people selected in that local government area go to those banks within that locality,” he said.

He, however, said the ministry had opened up the process for beneficiaries to use any bank in their localities.

“We have made an adjustment in the last few months. We are not attaching a particular bank to a local government again. So, no matter what it is, we will achieve 98 per cent success on the programme,” he explained.

Also speaking, the Director-General of NDE, Abubakar Fikpo, said the N52 billion appropriated for the scheme was domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which channelled the money to the beneficiaries through the selected commercial banks.

The agency, he said, compiled the details of the beneficiaries, including their bank accounts, and forwarded to the Office of Accountant-General of the Federation, which would then instruct the CBN to disburse.

“It is the Accountant General that instructs CBN and then they effect the payment, which was why sometimes we experience failed payment. We only intervene in the process, when payment fails. We then communicate with the beneficiaries to sort out the issue with their banks,” he said.