The federal
government is set to exit 200,000 N-Power Scheme of the beneficiaries from the
programme, after three years of their recruitment.
According to
the Leadership who reported that their disengagement will take place between January
and February this year.
Some
officials of the National Social Investment Office (NSIO) and the Federal
Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development,
operators of the scheme confirmed the development in Abuja, yesterday.
They said
that the 200,000 persons to go were among 500,000 young Nigerians recruited by
the federal government for the N-Power programme in 2016.
It was
gathered that they were being dropped from the scheme because there was no
budgetary provision for them in the 2020 national budget.
The youth
empowerment programme was created by the federal government with a focus on
large-scale skill development for employment and social development. The
beneficiaries were recruited in two batches: Batch A: 200,000 and Batch B:
300,000 in 2016 and 2017 respectively.
A top
official of NSIO told report that the time had come for the affected 200,000
beneficiaries to go, as he repeatedly said: “But they must go. They have to go.
Government cannot sustain it. Government has to graduate some so that they can
enroll other people too.”
The source
said that the management of NSIO had already prepared an exit plan for the
exiting beneficiaries after spending 16 extra months for the two-year
programme. They were reportedly paid nine months of the extra time.
It was
further gathered that the exit plan is currently waiting the approval of the
minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed.
Also a
source in the presidency explained that the first batch of 200,000 were
supposed to leave the internship scheme before now, adding that they were left
on the payroll because of the 2019 general elections because that was not the
right time to disengage the.
“Their exit
time fell on 2018 which was election period. So, it will not be wise for the
government to be sacking 200,000 people on the eve of the general elections.
Politically, it’s not wise. That’s why the programme stretched till this time.
They have even stayed nine months extra on the payroll.
“The truth
is that they don’t even have allocation for them in the 2020 budget and because
of that, they will not be paid. They will exit them this January or so,” the
source said.
The
beneficiaries were to have graduated from the N-Power after two years of
internship but they stayed longer for another 16 months on the government’s
payroll, he said.
Disengagement
Plans
Commenting
on the disengagement plan for the Batch A members, the source explained that
the federal government is looking for a soft-landing for them, adding that the
aim was to ensure that they were not pushed into the labour market without any
empowerment.
Part of the
plan, according to him, is to allow the participants access to loans of between
N30,000 and N100,000 to start up small and medium scale businesses.
The source
added that federal government officials were already meeting with the state
governments that benefited from the N-Power Agro, N-Power Health, N-Power
Teach, N-Power Community Education, and N-Power Health workers to absorb or
engage those that had been productive.
It was also
learnt that the government plans to liaise with private sector employers and
other public institutions such as the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence corps
(NSCDC), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the police to absorb some of
them since they had acquired about three years’ experience in various areas.
Another
source disclosed that the government plans to enlist some of them into the
Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP) being run by the Bank of
Industry (BoI) to give them loan facilities.
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