FG’s N-Power social intervention scheme collapses over poor funding

By AYOOLA OLAOLUWA

The N-Power Social Intervention Scheme is currently in limbo due to lack of funds to prosecute the programme, Business Hallmark can reveal.

The scheme, one of the several social intervention schemes set up by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari about a year after assuming office in 2015 to address youth unemployment and help increase social development.

Speaking during the inauguration of the scheme on June 8, 2016, President Buhari had announced to the country that the programme was created for both unemployed graduates and non-graduates between the ages of 18 and 35.

However, several years after its introduction, the ill-fated social intervention scheme has largely failed to achieve its objectives. BH reliably gathered that the scheme had been facing serious challenges from inception.

Some of the challenges include paucity of funds, lack of personnel to coordinate and monitor the programme, as well as the abandonment of duty by most of the beneficiaries despite being paid their monthly stipends of N30,000 each.

The matter, however, got to a head on Monday, February 13, 2023, when enrollees of the N-Power programme decided to down tools in protest against the non-payment of their four months’ salaries by the Federal Government.

The beneficiaries, who displayed various  placards during the protest, blamed their supervising ministry, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, for abandoning them to their plights.

According to the leaders of the group, who spoke with our reporter, their employers had promised to settle their allowances in the first week of February, but no N-Power beneficiary has received a dime as promised.

“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development seemed to have abandoned us to our fate.

“We have not received salary since October 2022. This month will will make it the fifth month that we have worked without getting our dues.

“Our problem (non payment of salary) did not start today. It started a long time ago, but we were only owed like two months maximum. But now, we are in the fifth month without any hope of being paid.

They promised to offset the backlog in January, but pushed it to the first week in February. Yet, not even one beneficiary has been paid.

“If the government knows it could no longer continue with the programme, it should just scrap it. But they must pay us first before sending us away”, said the leader of the Stream C-2 enrollees in Ifako-Ijaiye, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Kolawole.

Another beneficiary, who spoke with our reporter on the development, Saliu Gbenga (not real names), blamed the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, for not taking their welfare as  priority.

“We hear of the billions they spend monthly on providing stipends and foods to fictitious underprivileged Nigerians.

“Since the welfare scheme for the poor started, I have not seen one beneficiary who received the welfare package. Maybe they are angels from another planet.

“We pay transport fares to get to our places of primary assignment every day. If not that we trek most of the journey and that people also help us sometimes with funds, we will have stopped going to work a long time ago. How do they think we are surviving? They should please pay us and let us go”, the Stream C-2 beneficiary pleaded.

While the present set of N-Power beneficiaries are busy complaining about the the non-payment of their monthly stipends, BH reliably gathered that their plight might linger for a long time as the supervising ministry of the scheme is short of funds.

A source in the humanitarian ministry confided in BH that the ministry is suffering from acute shortage of funds as a result of the huge drop in the volume of revenue that used to enter into government coffers.

“Let me first state that the problem is not peculiar to the humanitarian ministry. It affects all other ministries, departments and parastatals.

“For instance, funds allocated to us in the 2022/23 financial years are quite inadequate.

“As you know, funds for the various intervention programmes are mostly from stolen funds repatriated from abroad.

“Meanwhile, the funds are running dry unlike in previous years when the country received billions of dollars of Abacha loot from abroad.

“We have advised the government to scrap its numerous Social Investment Schemes (SIPs), especially the N-Power programme.

“But probably due to political considerations, the government is reluctant to heed the advice, especially at this election period.

“I don’t blame the government, but it is beneficiaries that will suffer”, the source maintained.

The source further revealed that the salary of the 490,000 beneficiaries currently employed in the ongoing Batch C2 amounts to N14.7 billion monthly.

“If you multiply that by 12 months, that gives you N176.4 billion. Meanwhile, the ministry’s total budget in 2022, which runs till the end of March 2023 is merely N33billion, while its approved budget for 2023 is N35billion.

“You can now see where the problem is coming from. Unless the nation’s financial situation improves, I am sad to say the trend will most likely continue”, the source declared.

Checks revealed that one millions Nigerians have so far been enrolled in the programme.

For instance, 200,000 youths were recruited in Batch A; 300,000 in Batch B; 510,000 in Batch C1 and 490,000 in the still running Batch C2, data obtained from the humanitarian ministry website shows.

While N-Power beneficiaries complain of the non-payment of their salaries, most of them are also guilty of not showing up at their duty posts.

A headteacher of a public primary school in the Ifako-Ijaiye Local Government Area of Lagos State, who did not want her identity revealed, informed our correspondent that out of the 10 N-Power cadets posted to her school, only two had been faithful to their duties.