FG Set To Pay Participants In Its Special Public Works Programme |The Source

By Ayodele Oni

The 774,000 participants in the Federal Government’s Speciality Public Works (SPW) programme, may have cause to smile very soon.

This is going by the disclosure that the second tranche stipends of ₦20,000 to each of them would soon be paid by the federal government.

The programme, which kicked off in January, this year, has participants drawn across all local governments in the country.

Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, who disclosed this in Abuja, however put a clause, which is, those participants without Banks Verification Number, (BVN) would still not be paid.

The Federal Government had started partial payment of ₦20,000 stipends to the 774,000 workers in April, three months after the programme kick-started.

According to the Minister, some workers under the programme were having issues about their payments from two banks, which he did not name.

He explained that the affected banks had not met the requirements set by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), the implementing agency for the programme.

Keyamo said until the BVN of participants of the programme were verified, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would not credit those accounts.

“Those who have not received payments from two banks will be paid in due time.

“Until the two banks fulfill the mandate we gave them to ensure the credibility of the accounts and to make sure we eliminate fraud; until that is approved by us, the CBN will not credit those accounts.

“We want to appeal to everyone, especially those who have not received their first tranche from those two banks, that they will be paid, and everybody will be duly paid before the second tranche begins. And the second tranche will begin soon.

“We don’t want to make errors in haste, especially for me. This is a programme put under my care by Mr. President.

“I want to make sure that it is fraud-free. That is why I am ensuring that all indices of fraud are eliminated in those accounts before they are credited,” he added.