NPOWER: Exited beneficiaries yet to receive stipend allowances one year after

By Ridwan AREMU

One year after disengaging N-Power batches A and B beneficiaries, the federal government of Nigeria has still not paid the stipends of over 14, 200 ex-enrolees.

N-Power beneficiaries, numbering about 500, 000, were entitled to a monthly stipends of N30, 000 (an estimated 73 US Dollars).

However, between the months of March and July 2020, many beneficiaries did not get paid, and despite their constant cries, the government has refused to settle their payment.

The affected beneficiaries, over 14000 of them recently countered Minister Of Humanitarian Affairs, Social development and Disaster Management, Hajia Saddiya Umar Farouq’s claims that, the Ministry had paid all backlog owed the exited beneficiaries.

In a statement made available to newsmen by the affected beneficiaries in May 2021, the Beneficiaries maintained that, they haven’t received any payment from the Ministry since February 2020.

” We haven’t received any payment from the Ministry Of Humanitarian Affairs since February 2020. We are numbered over 14200 and we have Facebook pages where we connect with ourselves. None of us has claimed that he/she received any payment from the Ministry. The Minister lied about the payment”, Spokesperson of the Unpaid Npower beneficiaries, Comrade Nweke Dennis stated in a statement.

It would be recalled that, Npower Scheme under the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Social Development and Disaster Management disengaged 500,000 Npower beneficiaries from the scheme in July 2020. Promising them a special loan package tagged “NEXIT”, after disengagement.

News Live Nigeria gathered that, the Special Loan package for the exited Npower beneficiaries hasn’t kicked off and there hasn’t been any updates from the Ministry on the cause of the delay.

Npower is a volunteer scheme initiated by Buhari’s Government in 2016 and has since engaged and exited 500,000 beneficiaries in two Batches (A&B).