Betta Edu, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, said that the Federal Government has commenced payment of arrears to N-Power recipients.
N-Power is a programme established in 2016 by former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to combat young unemployment and promote social development.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration owed the recipients some months’ pay, which President Bola Tinubu halted upon taking office.
However, the minister stressed that the Federal Government wishes to address the scheme’s flaws before continuing it.
Edu stated on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday that the payment of arrears to scheme recipients began yesterday.
According to the Minister:
“Presently, a payment for N-Power is ongoing; we were in the office yesterday up until the early hours of this morning, just to ensure that young people get monies that they have been owed from the last government.
“So, N-Power beneficiaries across the nation, I am sure you can attest to the fact that you are seeing your money in your accounts and this process will continue until the last person who indeed has served is being paid.
“And of course, all of this is being restructured to ensure that we reduce unemployment and create jobs for Nigerians.”
“The Renewed Hope N-Power has not been relaunched yet. We are still trying to deal with the baggage from the previous years. So, these are persons who were owed money for a few months.
“We used to have a consultant who used to manage the payments of these monies to the N-Power beneficiaries. However, the monies were being held up with the consultants for months without paying the beneficiaries.
“So, what the government did was to recover the money back into the government’s TSA CBN account and now started scrutiny of the beneficiaries which took us this while to do and that is why we appeal to the young people to be patient.”
cc: Punch Ng
