Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
The Senate Public Account Committee has commenced an investigation into the Public Works Programme coordinated by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in 2020.
The Federal Government had launched the programme targeted at recruiting 774,000 Nigerians and it was coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity.
One thousand people were selected from each of the 774 local government areas in the country.
The beneficiaries were paid N20, 000 each per month, for three months.
The SPAC, chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide at the Committee’s meeting yesterday gave the NDE two weeks to submit a comprehensive report of the beneficiaries of the scheme in the 36 states of the country and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
SPAC, which is currently investigating expenditure of Service Wide Votes (SWV) discovered that NDE collected N26bn for the scheme in 2020 from the vote.
Surprisingly at the panel’s meeting, all the seven senators that were present said that none of his constituent members benefited from the scheme.
Insecurity: Worst is over, Nigeria is safe – Lai Mohammed
One of the Panel members, Senator Thompson Sekibo, said nobody was selected among the constituents that he nominated for employment.
He said all names submitted by federal lawmakers who are the real representatives of the people, were not considered.
Also, Senator Michael Nnachi, said he could not identify any person from his constituency that was selected from his Senatorial District.
He also explained that the NDE should make available beneficiary lists from his Senatorial District.
The Committee members therefore unanimously agreed that the NDE should submit names, phones number, and account details of the 1, 000 beneficiaries in each of the 774 local government areas within one week.
However, the representative of the NDE who is a director of the agency, Isah Abdul, appealed to the Committee to give the agency three weeks to compile the list of beneficiaries.
However, the Committee declined and gave the agency two weeks to submit the list.
