The federal government has revealed plans for to begin the payment of backlogs to beneficiaries of the N-Power programme.
This announcement was made by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, during a Channels Television Program, Politics Today.
The social investment program popularly known as the N-Power is a scheme initiated in 2016 by the immediate past President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. The federal government program is aimed at addressing the challenges of youth unemployment and help improve the living standard of Nigerians.
It would be recalled that the beneficiaries were being owed some months’ stipends by the former President Muhammadu Buhari administration but upon assumption of office, President Bola Tinubu suspended the program.
The humanitarian minister stated that the Federal Government wants to resolve the lapses in the scheme before it reintroduction.
She disclosed that the payment of backlogs to beneficiaries of the programme began on Wednesday 20th December 2023.
“Presently, a payment for N-Power is ongoing; we were in the office yesterday up until the early hours of this morning, just to ensure that young people get monies that they have been owed from the last government”. She added.
The Minister assured all N-Power beneficiaries across the nation, of the payment of their arrears until the last person who indeed has served is being paid.
Edu maintained that the Renewed Hope N-Power has not been relaunched yet adding that the present administration is still trying to deal with the baggage from the previous years which included beneficiaries who were owed money .
According to her; “We used to have a consultant who used to manage the payments of these monies to the N-Power beneficiaries. However, the monies were being held up with the consultants for months without paying the beneficiaries”.
While calling on the beneficiaries to excercise patience, the Minister stated that all government did was to recover the money back into its TSA CBN account for scrutiny of the beneficiaries explaining that that was the reason for the delay in payment of stipends.
