FG opens up on why over 400,000 N-power beneficiaries have not been paid

He federal government has explained why over 400 thousand beneficiaries of its N-Power programme have not been paid the monthly stipends.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, said the delay is due to some verification process in the ministry.

According to her, the ministry wants to understand and have a full list of beneficiaries that were paid before she was asked to take over the affairs of the programme.

“I know we had a complaint in October while we just got the NSIP into the ministry and we needed to understand the programme considering that it has been in existence before we came on board. We needed to understand before we start signing for a large amount of money and that was why we had the delay then.

“Unfortunately, then we were operating with a director who was overseeing the office of the permanent secretary and then in January, we had a new permanent secretary who also had to understand the nature of the programme,” she said.

The N-Power programme is targeted at training and providing jobs for 500,000 young and unemployed Nigerian graduates between 18-35 years across the 774 local government areas.

In February,, the Minister hinted that there are 473,137 beneficiaries in the programme.