The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has commenced partial payment of stipends to beneficiaries of 774,000 jobs created by the federal government.
Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo (SAN) disclosed this in a statement at the weekend.
He said following the release of some of the funds by the Ministry of Finance for the payment of SPW stipends, he directed a rigorous scrutiny of the accounts of the participants before payment.
According to him, during the scrutiny, “we discovered instances of accounts not matching BVNs, multiple accounts bearing a single BVN, non-existent BVNs, etc.
“Because of our determination to eliminate fraud, I further directed the NDE to write to the banks to clean up these anomalies before commencing payments.
“So far, only Access Bank has responded with accounts verified for payments and the NDE has today commenced payments of those accounts with Access Bank.”
According to him, the determination to ensure those selected for the programme get paid to assist them in these tough times is also matched by the determination to ensure that the programme does not spiral into a vehicle for fraud.
