Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Federal Government has announced the temporary suspension of the N-Power programme across the country.
Its National Programme Manager, Dr. Akindele Egbuwalo, in a statement issued on Sunday, said the action became necessary to give room for a detailed investigation into the operations of the N-Power in the last 12 months.
He explained that the total number of persons enrolled on N-Power since inception to date is 960,000 people, adding that most of them have exited from N-Power 1.0 and N-Power 2.0
Egbuwalo said: “It is imperative to inform Nigerians, particularly beneficiaries of the N-Power programme across the country, of the temporary suspension of the programme.
“There is a need to audit the number of people in the programme; those who have exited the programme; those who are being owed, whether they reported to work or not and how funds have been utilised over this period of time.”
The programme manager said it had recently discovered instances of programme beneficiaries whose participation had lapsed since 2022 but have remained on and continue to expect payments from the government.
“In addition, some beneficiaries must honour their obligation to the programme: They do not report to their places of primary assignments as required but still receive monthly payments,” he said.
Egbuwalo stressed that these instances have made the need for a thorough audit imperative, as they also look into claims of those being owed for up to eight to nine months’ stipends to ascertain the veracity of their claims.
According to him, “The graduates and non-graduate volunteers Batch C1 and C2 are in this category. We want to establish the exact number of people owed and the total amounts, thereby eliminating ghost beneficiaries.
“Preliminary findings of our audit have shown that some consultants are holding on to beneficiaries’ funds disbursed to them long ago even when their contract ended in March 2023 without any renewal.
“We condemn this practice and will not tolerate it going forward. Work is ongoing to identify those involved, understand why the payments didn’t get to the final beneficiaries, and recall the funds to pay those owed.”
The programme manager appealed to Nigerians to understand the rationale behind the temporary suspension and investigation of the programme as they work to restore the nation’s confidence in the programme and for the new N-Power to serve Nigerians better, adding that things have to be properly done for us to move forward.
He noted: “This restructuring and transformation will also birth an expanded programme to reach beneficiaries aged 18-40 (the previous age limit was 35). We are targeting 5 million beneficiaries in five years at a pace of 1 million per year under the graduate and non-graduate stream.”
Egbuwalo added that the restructuring would accommodate some new programmes, in Education, Health, Works, Agriculture, Technology, fashion, entertainment and other relevant areas of skill acquisition and employability.
He said to earn the confidence of Nigerians in the expanded programme, transparency and accountability would be the benchmark.
The programme manager assured all beneficiaries with genuine claims that it would be resolved once the audit is completed.
