Senate Public Account Committee has launched investigation into the Public Works Programme coordinated by National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in which 774,000 Nigerians were recruited with mandate of 1000 people per local government.
Federal government earnmarked N52 billion for the project in 2020 in which 774,000 Nigerians were paid N20,000 each for three months.
However, at the Committee sitting of Senate Public Account Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide , the lawmakers gave the National Directorate of Employment two weeks to submit comprehensive report of the beneficiaries of scheme in 36 states of the country and Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The Committee which is currently investigating expenditure of Service Wide Votes (SWV) discovered that NDE collected N26 billion for the scheme in 2020.
However, drama ensued at the Committee meeting yesterday as all seven Senators that were present at the meeting said that non of the constituent members benefited from the scheme.
Senator Thompson Sekibo said that there is nobody benefited from his Senatorial district from the programme that all names submitted by the lawmakers who representatives of the people were not considered .
Also, Senator Michael Nnachi said not single person benefited from his Senatorial district adding that the NDE should make available beneficiaries from his Senatorial district.
The Committee members therefore unanimously agreed that the NDE should submit names, phones number, Accounts detail of the 1000 beneficiaries in each 774 local governments within one week.
But, the representative of NDE who is a director in the agency, Isah Abdul appealed to the Committee to give the agency three weeks to compile the list of Beneficiaries.
However, the Committee declined and gave the agency two weeks to submit the list.
