TheCable

The federal government says it has paid the October and November 2019 backlog allowances of beneficiaries of N-Power programme.

Halima Oyelade, special assistant on media to Sadiya Farouk, minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, disclosed this in a statement on Friday.

Oyelade said the minister ensured the payment of the allowance before December 20 as she had earlier promised.

“It can be recalled that, the Minister has on December 2, 2019 at a Press Conference promised to pay the backlog of the allowances before December 20th, 2019, and also explained that the payments were being processed while the Social Investment Programme (SIP) was being moved to the Ministry in line with a Presidential directive,” the statement read.

“The N-Power programme has 500,000 volunteers who are engaged as teachers, health workers and agricultural extension officers, among other fields. They are deployed to various locations throughout the country offering their services to Nigerians. Each participant is paid a stipend of N30, 000 monthly.”

He said the SIP has four components namely Conditional Cash Transfer, the N-Power programme, the Homegrown School Feeding Programme and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme.

The four programmes, according to Oyelade, have over 13 million direct beneficiaries and an estimated 44 million secondary beneficiaries across the country.

“The minister assured that the kind of promptness demonstrated in the payment of the backlog as promised will be sustained so that the programmes will continue to achieve their goals of improving the wellbeing of Nigerians,” the statement read.

Farouk had taken charge of the social investment programmes (SIP) following a presidential directive in October. The programme was previously coordinated by the office of the vice-president.