Nigeria’s Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, has said it approached the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, to unearth the corruption in the N-Power programme.
Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr. Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, disclosed this while addressing a press conference on Wednesday, in Abuja.
The revelation comes on the heels of reports that ICPC has arrested and detained a popular singer, Oladapo Oyebanji, popularly known as D’banj, for allegedly conniving with some government officials to introduce ghost beneficiaries into the payroll of the scheme.
The ministry had in July and June 2022 engaged over 10,000 independent monitors across the country, while it signed a one year Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with Save the Children International to ensure proper monitoring and evaluation of National Social Investment Programmes, NSIP.
”The Ministry’s attention has been brought to recent publications regarding ongoing investigations in relation to fraud allegations in the Programme.
” The Ministry has deployed a well-rounded mechanism for selection of eligible beneficiaries from across the country and this has been in place since the inception of the program. Working with our Service Provider, Program Beneficiaries are on boarded, trained and deployed to pre-selected Places of Primary Assignment.
“When it came to our notice that there may have been sharp practices by some personnel of the Payment Service Provider (PSP) involved in the payment processes of beneficiaries, the matter was immediately referred to ICPC for thorough investigation. We are aware that certain persons have consequently been invited for interrogation as part of the ongoing investigations.
” In the meantime, we have carried out thorough reinforcement of our systems to eliminate all anomalies and prevent similar occurrences in the future. To this end we are in close collaboration with ICPC to support the successful determination of the investigation.
“The public may wish to note that in a bid to ensure transparency and accountability in the implementation of N-Power and other National Social Investment Programmes, namely the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme(NHGSFP), Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP)and the Conditional Cash Transfer(CCT), the Ministry has over time involved other government MDA’s, Security Agencies and Civil Society Organizations in monitoring and compliance checks across the 36 states of the country and the FCT,” Gwarzo said.
He assured all N-POWER beneficiaries of Federal Government’s continued commitment to the programme and the subsequent exit/off-boarding channels activated.
The permanent secretary added that all programme beneficiaries should therefore continue to apply themselves to their utmost at their Places of Primary Assignment. All monthly stipends will continue to be paid in line with program
