The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development have paid the October and November 2019 backlog allowances of beneficiaries of the N-Power programme before December 20, 2019, as promised by the Minister, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq.
According to the statement released on Friday 27th December 2019, by the Special Assistant to the Minister on Media, Halima Oyelade, stated that the Minister had on December 2, 2019, at a Press Conference promised to pay the backlog of the allowances to the N-power programme beneficiaries before December 20th, 2019 and also explained that the payments were being processed while the Social Investment Programme (SIP) was being moved to the Ministry in line with a Presidential directive.
“The N-Power Programme has 500,000 volunteers who are engaged as teachers, health workers and agricultural extension officers, among other fields. They are deployed to various locations throughout the country offering their services to Nigerians. Each participant is paid a stipend of N30, 000 monthly” the statement said.
Stating further, the Minister said, “It can be recalled that when the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development was created, President Muhammadu Buhari directed that the Social Investment Programme (SIP) will be under the purview of the new Ministry.
The SIP has four components namely Conditional Cash Transfer, the N-Power Programme, the Homegrown School Feeding Programme and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme.
The four programmes have over 13 million direct beneficiaries and an estimated 44 million secondary beneficiaries across the country.
The Minister assured that the kind of promptness demonstrated in the payment of the backlog as promised will be sustained so that the programmes will continue to achieve their goals of improving the wellbeing of Nigerians”.