President Muhammadu Buhari has directed for the release of stipends to be paid to the 774,000 participants of the ongoing Special Public Works Programme across the country.
The Minister of State for Labour, Employment and Productivity, Festus Keyamo (SAN), disclosed this in a series of tweets on his Twitter handle on Saturday.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has graciously directed a release of the funds for the payment of stipends to the 774,000 participants of the SPW programme.
“I have consequently directed the NDE to begin processing the payments and participants should begin to receive payments soon.
“In order to eliminate fraud and/or double payments, I have also directed that every payment to participants should be made using the BVN of their accounts so we can have an audit trail of every single payment.
“Those who registered with different names should not expect payments,” Keyamo wrote.
The programme started on January 5 amid the order by the House of Representatives that it should be suspended pending when all issues the National Assembly had against it were resolved.
The programme bis meant to engage 774,000 unemployed Nigerians. The sum of N52bn was appropriated for the scheme and each of the 774,000 workers is expected to earn N20,000 monthly for the three-month duration of the job.