The Federal Government, on Sunday, said it has commenced payment of the N20,000 monthly stipend to some beneficiaries of the 774,000 Special Public Works programme.
Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo (SAN), made this known in a statement released to clarify the Federal Government’s position in relation to delay in payment of stipends to the workers.
We could recalled that some aggrieved workers had frowned at the delay in payment of their stipends which the government attributed to the mismatch of Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) and other details supplied by the beneficiaries.
Keyamo’s statement read in part, “After the release of some of the funds by the Ministry of Finance for the payment of SPW stipends, I directed rigorous scrutiny of the accounts of the participants before payment”
“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 payment and the NDE has today commenced payment of those accounts with Access Bank.”
Keyamo also restated the Federal government’s determination to ensure that those selected for the programme get paid.
