Sadia Umar Farouq Explains Reason Behind Non-Payment of NPower Beneficiaries

The Federal Government, Thursday, said it did not pay 14,020 NPower volunteers in the just ended batches of NPower programme because the affected NPower volunteers’ account details were found to be already existing in other ministries, departments, and agencies. The Federal Government noted that the actions of the NPower enrollees were against the established rule of the NPower scheme, the Ministry regretted that the development affected some genuine and eligible NPower beneficiaries.

But said it was investigating into such cases with a view to solving the issues soonest.

The Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, in a statement through its Deputy Director, Press, Rhoda Iliya, responded following complaints lodged by some NPower beneficiaries who claimed they did not receive their payments accrued to 4 months before the end of the just concluded batches. “The Honourable Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, regrets any inconvenience this might have caused genuine and eligible NPower beneficiaries just as the Office of the Accountant General, saddled with the responsibility of the filtering out those denied is working assiduously to fix the situation,” the statement said. It read in full: “The attention of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has been drawn to the complaint of non-payment of some NPower volunteers during the last exercise, with some alleging non-payment for upward of four months. “For the records, the Ministry wishes to state that it had always processed, approved and remit necessary information for payments to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, (OAGF), whose responsibility it is to credit the various accounts of the NPower beneficiaries using the Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System,(GIFMIS)platform as directed by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

“However, after receiving a complaint of non-payment by some NPower beneficiaries the OAGF (GIFMIS) officially wrote informing the ministry that out of a total of 516,600 NPower volunteers data sent to OAGF for migration in April 2020, only a total of 502,580 data have successfully migrated to the GIFMIS platform, while a total of 14,020 NPower beneficiaries were returned because the NPower beneficiaries’ account details already exist in other MDAs, which is against the established rule of the NPower scheme. This is verifiable. “The Honourable Minister,Sadiya Umar Farouq, regrets any inconvenience this might have caused genuine and eligible NPower beneficiaries just as the OAGF saddled with the responsibility of the filtering out those denied is working assiduously to remedy the situation.”