Nigeria’s Humanitarian Scheme N-Power Suspended, Detailed Financial Audit Begins

Nigeria's N-Power Program will be temporarily suspended, following which it will undergo a detailed audit, the minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, announced on Sunday.

The suspension took place to ensure more transparency in the humanitarian scheme, as authorities believe a detailed investigation would help expand the program to accommodate less privileged Nigerians. Former president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari had launched this program on June 8, 2016, to empower Nigerian youth, who were jobless and wanted to improve their work skills.

A preliminary audit of the program had revealed that some beneficiaries still received government funds even though their contracts had ended without any renewal.

"This action has become necessary to give room for a detailed investigation into the operations of the N-Power in the last twelve months," the minister said in the statement signed by the National Program Manager, Akindele Egbuwalo, Vanguard reported.

The minister went on to share that the total number of persons enrolled in the N-Power Program since it started was 960,000 people, revealing that most of them have left the N-Power 1.0 and N-Power 2.0 batch A and B.

"There is a need to audit the number of people in the program, those who have exited the program, those who are being owed, whether they reported to work or not, and how funds have been utilized over this period of time," Edu said.

"In addition, some beneficiaries must honor their obligation to the program: They do not report to their places of primary assignments as required but still receive monthly payments," the minister explained. "Some have other jobs and have left this bracket but are still benefiting from the payments, while those who truly worked are not paid."

Due to this, the minister has asked to shut down the program for some time and do a thorough audit to know about the beneficiaries.

"We condemn this practice and will not tolerate it going forward. Work is ongoing to identify those involved, understand why the payments didn't get to the final beneficiaries, and recall the funds to pay those owed."

The minister appealed to all Nigerians to understand the reason behind this temporary suspension and investigation, as it will help to restore the nation's confidence in the program and serve the citizens better.

"We assure all beneficiaries with genuine claims that we will resolve their cases once we complete the verification exercise and honor all valid outstanding obligations. Nobody will be owed," she concluded.