New Telegraph

Senate grills Keyamo over FG’s 774, 000 Special Public Works

The Senate, Monday, grilled the Minister of State for Labour, Mr. Festus Keyamo, over the delay in the payment of the monthly allowances of the beneficiaries of the Federal Government Social Public Works.

The apex legislative Assembly asked Keyamo to explain the circumstances responsible for the delay.

In his response, the minister told the lawmakers that the Federal Government was yet to disburse N7.3 billion to the remaining beneficiaries of the 774, 000 Special Public Works Programme.

He stated this during the 2022 budget defence organised by the Senate Committee on Labour and Employment, for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of Government.

Keyamo, who noted that the delay was due to bank issues, however, promised that the ministry would ensure that the funds were disbursed before the end of December.

It would be recalled that the Programme was introduced in October 2019, following President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval.

The programme is domiciled in the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), and seeks to address the problem of unemployment across the country, especially in the rural areas, thus making the unemployed youth more useful to themselves and society.

In the programme, beneficiaries are to be paid N20,000 a month for three months.

Keyamo, while making clarifications on the commercial banks used in disbursing the fund, said: “Why we insisted on certain banks was because of the auditing process. This is so that we have a clear audit instead of us chasing banks all over the place.”

The minister, however, said that the ministry had opened up the process whereby beneficiaries could use any bank in their locality instead of the only previously selected banks.

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