HM @Sadiya_farouq DISTANCES SELF FROM DIVERTED SCHOOL FEEDING FUNDS

@FMHDSD wishes to dissociate itself from a trending report in the media titled “N2.72b for School Feeding During Lockdown Diverted To Private Accounts”.
The report emanated after a presentation by
the Chairman of @ICPC_PE, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye at the 2nd National Summit on Diminishing Corruption and was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday.
The report states thus “preliminary investigation had indicated that part of the N2.67billion was diverted to private accounts. It also revealed that over N2.5 billion was misappropriated by a senior civil servant (name withheld) in the ministry of agriculture and now deceased, for himself and cronies”.
The statement by ICPC was twisted and misinterpreted by mischief makers and directed at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.
The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development hereby informs the public that the Federal Government Colleges school feeding in question is different from the Home Grown School Feeding which is one of its Social Investment Programmes.
That the School Feeding under scrutiny is feeding of students in Federal Government Colleges across the country and is not under @FMHDSD which only oversees Home Grown School Feeding for children in Primaries 1-3 in select public schools across the country.
That the Ministry or the Minister does not even handle or disburse funds for @NHGSFP.
That money for funding the Programme neither passes through the Minister nor the ministry.
That the over N2.5 billion which was reportedly misappropriated by a senior civil servant (name withheld) took place in a different ministry and not the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
That the ICPC recovered N16 billion worth
of assets from the said ministry which was paid into an individual account for non-official purposes and not the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs , Disaster Management and Social Development describes those casting aspersions on the Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq as malicious and unfair and calls on The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC to publish the names of persons, federal colleges and school heads whose names have been found to be associated with the missing funds and also freeze the accounts where the said funds were diverted.
The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs therefore calls on the general public to disregard the false reports being linked to the ministry as it is not in anyway involved
in the Federal Government Colleges School Feeding.
NNEKA IKEM ANIBEZE
SA Media
28-09-2020

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1310696436225511427.html

Social Investment Programme: ICPC Discovers School Feeding N2.67bn In Private Accounts

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it had discovered N2.67 billion of funds meant for feeding in some schools, stashed away in some private bank accounts.
The anti-corruption agency disclosed this on Monday during its 2nd National Summit on Diminishing Corruption and launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Chairman of the ICPC, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, explained the money was meant for some Federal Colleges during the COVID-19 lockdown.
He said further the Commission also discovered over N2.5 billion appropriated by a deceased senior civil servant in Ministry of Agriculture for himself and cronies, listing other assets recovered in the Ministry Agriculture to include 18 buildings, 12 business premises and 25 plots of land.
He said under Open Treasury Portal review carried out between January to August 15, 2020, out of 268 Ministries, Departments and Agendas (MDAs) 72 of them had cumulative infractions of N90 million. He said while 33 MDAs tendered explanations that N4.1 billion was transferred to sub-TSA, N4.2 billion paid to individuals had no satisfactory explanations.
According to Owasanoye: “We observed transfers to sub-TSA were to prevent disbursement from being monitored. Nevertheless, we discovered payments to some federal colleges for school feeding in the sum of N2.67 billion during lockdown when the children are not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced investigations into these finding.”
The ICPC chairman also said under its 2020 constituency and executive projects tracking initiative, 722 projects with a threshold of N100 million (490 ZiP and 232 executive) were tracked across 16 states.
The ICPC chairman said in education sector, 78 MDAs were reviewed and common cases of misuse of funds were uncovered.
Some of the discoveries include life payment of bulk sums to individuals/staff accounts, including project funds; non-deductions/remittance of taxes and IGR; payments of unapproved allowances, bulk payment to micro finance banks, payment of arrears of salary and other allowances of previous years from 2020 budget, payment of salary advance to staff, under-deduction of PAYE and payment of promotion arrears due to surplus in Personnel Cost, abuse and granting of cash advances above the approved threshold and irregular payment of allowances to principal officers.
On asset recovery, Owasanoye said the commission recovered N16 billion from Ministry of Agriculture paid into individual accounts for non-official purposes.
He said: “We have restrained or recovered by administrative or court interim and final orders assets above N3 billion, facilitated recovery of $173,000 by the whistle blower unit of FMFB&P from an erring oil company, retrained £160,000 in a UK-bank in an ongoing interim forfeiture. These figures exclude quantum of recoveries on return or contractors to site as a result of projects tracking initiatives.
“It should however be noted that some of these assets are subjected to ongoing cases and where suspects proved their cases physical or liquid assets will be released in accordance with laid down laws, guidelines or court directives.”

http://community.thenationonlineng.net/forum/icpc-discovers-school-feeding-n2-67bn-in-private-accounts

N-Power: An Open Letter To The President Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria

OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

Your Excellency,

Disengaging N-power beneficiaries will not solve the issue of unemployment in the country, absorb us in batches.

I have written considerably within my very own conscience on this piece, a judgment from the policy of what should be and how it oath to be in fairness and equity for the justice towards these frustrated Npower beneficiaries.

In 2013 during the 7th Assembly if I am not mistaken, that should approximately be during the former president Jonathan Ebele administration, when there was a casualty which hit hard on human conscience as a result of mass stampeding during the Nigeria Immigration Services Examination exercise Nationwide where innocent Nigeria take the lives of Nigerian Youths.

That very day I begin to respect the Nigerian government as a government of human administration conscience, having called on the relatives of the victims as they were given replacement slot and affected families were compensated as well.

That single act was not achieved by just the president then but was a collective effort of that administration.

During the last former president Yar-Adua, a committee was set up on the fight towards ending insurgency and militancy in Niger Delta precisely, on a good number of time chiefs, youth, and grassroots leaders were all consulted to borrow ideas on solving the issue of insecurity and that achievement was very fast in realizing its goals through sincere dedication and commitment by both the president and the members of the National Assembly which was what led to what we now have in the country as the National Amnesty Program which has been so far successful in terms of realizing its aims and purpose in the country. The act was an excellent idea of some political technocrats in the National Assembly who deemed it right as a means to reduced militancy and kidnapping to its barest minimum level.

This amnesty program and initiatives took many militants abroad for studies and training and that cost the government billions of Naira to train these militant groups abroad and today the program or perhaps should I say the initiative is progressing as we are still using it on today’s Boko Haram repentant.

Here we are N-power beneficiaries, law abiding citizens, of the country, who manned all the public schools in all the 774 Local Government Area of this country, all the health facilities and Agric Extension Services being treated as an outcast. What is the future of youths in this country?

The Nigeria Civil Defense Corps, NDLEA, NAFDAC, EFCC, NDDC etc all gained approval by administrations just for job creation in order to end unemployment in the country.

In fact, let me say every ministry, agencies and bodies are the creation of one administration or the other in the past which was created to tackle one problem or the other but its being enjoyed by everyone in the country.

If we keep rejecting bills that will ordinarily solve Nigerians problems, then we are just nothing but the makers of these rising problems.

The previous administration also mapped out plans to eradicate poverty and reduce the high level of unemployment in the nation, through its own style to youth empowerment program known as SURE-P.

The said SURE-P did not see the light of the day to realize it’s objectives as it was immediately beaten down and scrabbed by the new leadership since it was considered a consuming hippopotamus and a waste of Nation resources.

This led to a new born programme, conceived and perceived to be a world class Job Creation Program (JCP) adopted by the 8th Assembly in the fight against unemployment in the country and was tagged N-power.

This leadership gained its first phase of praise from these programme within the globe as to how the Nigeria Government employed 500,000 Nigerians from the streets that Nigeria’s unemployment level became much more relaxed.

At first, the program came to Nigerians with bigger hope for these innocent unemployed youth, as many homes were brought out of poverty in a mass number as it gained international administrative appraisal. 

Even through the pay was less but at least it was able to keep one’s mind out of crime and can enable one to pay his bills so that the issue of unemployment was half solved. 

Just like corona, we are in the fight on eradicating poverty and empowering youth through a life changing means which is one of Nigeria’s problems.

If we put interest in ending corruption, poverty and unemployment the way we are putting in the fight to end Covid-19, I believe we will be better than the way we are today.

Fine, we were initially told the job duration was a 24-month contract which made many applied hoping to get something better.

But if I may ask, where is the N-power device that was part of the agreement? About 70% of N-power beneficiaries have not received their devices. Where is the community police you promised in 2018 at the verge of 2016 batch completion of the 24months contract? Are we not supposed to be transition into the said new entrepreneur program before announcing our disengagement? Why are we being treated as 2nd class citizens in our father land? 

In a time when this innocent youth have made up their minds to leave in 2018 which marks the end of the programme, there was a promise which came to us through the country adviser to the vice president on social media and job creation (Mr. Afolabi).

According to Mr. Afolabi in a statement and I quote “Your permanency, is in your hand as you vote wisely” “Your permanency is your voters card”.

This brought new hope to N-power beneficiaries as we dumped other opportunities to grab a government job as promised by the APC led administration.

The subsequent year wasn’t a blanked one too as almost all Nation’s popular Newspapers carried it as headlines that N-power beneficiaries were to be transitioned into new national community police and this again made so much beneficiaries lost interest on other jobs, hoping that government will keep their part of the promise made during the campaign.

Why I am bringing up these topics, I am deeply disappointed having read through national papers that the Federal government disengaged 2016 and 2017 beneficiaries who have contributed so much on our education, health sector and agricultural extension into mere entrepreneurs’ scheme.

I mean I know there are still good leaders there, some of you were a onetime Governor so you know better.

This is about National building and Economy so I want you all as the leader we have to consider the plight of the youth.

I want the National Assembly and other well meaning Nigerians to know that if N-power beneficiaries are sent back, then they have been denied a better future after graduation as many of us have grown beyond employability age in the civil service commission.

How can we boldly say we have reduced unemployment when we have just offloaded 500,000 youths in the selection of another 400,00 youths which will be given the same dumping treatment in the short-term of 12 months?

I mean it’s a simple mathematics we have only successfully destroyed live of some 500,00 innocent Nigerian Youths the moment we send N-power beneficiary back to the street, therefore adding more to our problems.

Most of these beneficiary became dependants on their N30,000 stipends and now having families and homes they take care of.

 I am appealing with the National Assembly and other well meaning Nigerians to intervene on this issue to demonstrate their representative status for their respective constituencies.

As the people representative that you are, I urge you all to defend these beneficiaries into absorption in or #1million grant to set up a business that can employ two or more Nigerian youth.

Let us solve a problem before creating another by engaging another set of youth without gainfully engaging the 2016 and 2017 beneficiaries as it will be another NYSC program and a total waste time and resources.

We need your help!

On behalf of N-power youth congress 

Cc

The Vice President.

The National Assembly.

Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

Federal Civil Service Commission.

Humanitarian and Disaster Management.

Ministry of Justice..

Ministry of Empowerment, labor & productivity.

Ministry of work.

Ministry of power.

Ministry of transport.

Ministry of youth and Empowerment.

National Human right commission

HON. JOSEPH ENAN MAIGARI

NYC NATIONAL COORDINATOR.