The Federal Government has said that selected applicants for the 774, 000 job slots, under the Special Public Works Programme will be paid through their bank accounts, using their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) .
Minister of State for Labour and Employment Festus Keyamo said this on Thursday during a press briefing in Abuja, stressing that government settled for this measure to entrench a system of transparency and to avoid double payments to applicants during the implementation exercise.
The Federal Government had designed the Special Public Works Programme to employ 1,000 persons from each of the 774 Local Government Areas of the country. The government said it is going to spend N52 billion which will go into payment of the participants at N20,000 per month for three months and other logistic arrangements.
The exercise is expected to commence in October this year.
Keyamo noted that the biometrics of successful applicants would be captured by the banks during the process. He added that arrangements with the banks would be concluded in the next few days to ensure that there is transparency in the process.
The minister said: “Mr. President has given a clear directive for this programme to be totally free of fraud, everybody will be paid by a bank account and BVN. You must not only have a bank account you must have a BVN so you cannot be paid twice.
“You can’t open an account under two different names. Everybody’s biometrics will be taken by the banks to ensure that you don’t have two different accounts. Within the next few weeks we will do that.
“We are going to conclude with the banks in the next few days to ensure that we are transparent and the banks will tell Nigerians exactly how they want to go about this in all all the local governments in the country.”
He stated that there would be implementation committees at different levels to ensure proper documentation of those who have been selected.
“There will be implementation committees at different levels to ensure proper documentation of those who have been selected. They (the committees) will work closely with the banks. They will also select the projects to be done and they will also go ahead and supervise the different works that will be done in the various local governments.
“In other words, we don’t just want to give people money and sit down here in Abuja and assume that those community services are going on everywhere. We don’t want to assume that.
“We are going to have actual people on the ground; implementation committee supervising this work. Over the next fear days the DG and myself we will put our heads together and announce these committees across the country,” the minister stated.
Also speaking, the Director General of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Nasir Ladan stated that the agency was ready to commence implementation of the programme.
He said “They (selection committees) have sent their reports to us and we have made some corrections and adjustments and we are good to go. As far as I am concerned, issue of special public works, are fully ready.
“We believe the said date of October first, to us it is a reality.”
