Senate Investigates NDE Over Hiring Of 774,000 Nigerians

The Senate Public Account Committee has launched an investigation into the Public Works Programme coordinated by the National Directorate of Employment in which 774,000 Nigerians were recruited with the mandate of 1000 people per local government.

The federal government earmarked N52bn for the project in 2020 in which 774,000 Nigerians were to be paid N20,000 each for three months.

However, at the Committee sitting of Senate Public Accounts chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide, the lawmakers gave the National Directorate of Employment two weeks to submit a comprehensive report of the beneficiaries of the scheme across the 36 states of the country and Federal Capital Territory.

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The Committee which is currently investigating the expenditure of Service Wide Votes discovered that NDE collected N26bn for the scheme in 2020.

However, drama ensued at the committee meeting on Tuesday when all seven Senators that were present at the meeting said that non of their constituent members benefitted from the scheme.

Senator Thompson Sekibo (Rivers East) said that nobody benefited from his district from the programme adding that all names submitted by lawmakers were not considered.

Also, Senator Michael Nnachi (Ebonyi South) said no single person benefitted from his district, stating that the NDE should make available a beneficiaries list from the district.

The committee members, therefore, unanimously agreed that the NDE should submit names, phones number, and accounts details of the 1,000 beneficiaries in each 774 local government within one week.

But, the representative of NDE who is a director in the agency, Isah Abdul, appealed to the Committee to give the agency three weeks to compile the list of beneficiaries.

The committee declined and gave the agency two weeks to submit the list.

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