The Federal Government has summoned seven banks handling the payment of N20,000 stipends meant for 774,000 participants of the Extended Special Public Works (ESPW) programme.
At a meeting which lasted several hours on Monday, the government fine-tuned modalities for the payment of beneficiaries of the programme.
The meeting held after Daily Trust’s investigation on how thousands of the participants have not been paid their stipends two after months after the completion of the programme.
Some participants, who spoke to Daily Trust, said they were short-changed and called on the federal government to investigate the anomaly.
Giving an update after the meeting, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, directed all the participants who have no problems with their respective bank accounts to immediately proceed to their banks and clarify issues.
He said, “For those who do not have problems with their BVNs but have not received payments, they should go to the banks that registered them to clarify the issues.
“The banks are mandated to issue ATM cards to all participants. Participants are therefore encouraged to collect their ATM cards from the banks so that they can access their payments from various cash points without necessarily going to the banks.
“Participants are assured that their stipends would be paid as soon as all issues are resolved.”
The minister explained further that the meeting agreed that banks are no longer restricted to their initially allotted Local Governments.
According to him, “Consequently, selected participants are at liberty to approach any of the seven selected banks nearest to the Local Government where they were selected. The Banks are Access, FCMB, Fidelity, Heritage, UBA, Yobe MFB and Zenith.
“So far, the NDE has authorized the payments of one-month stipends to all those that have been verified. As shown above, all parties are making strenuous efforts to resolve issues of those yet to receive the first month stipends before the commencement of the second tranche of payments.”
The meeting had in attendance, representatives of the office of the Minister of Labour and Employment, the National Directorate of Employment and banks.
