Participants attending the N-Power Tech Hardware training holding in Yola have alleged fraudulent diversion of their transport allowances.
The non-graduate participants from six North East states boycotted classes on Tuesday and protested in front of the training centre located at the Federal College of Education (FCE) Yola over alleged discrepancy in transport allowances even among beneficiaries from the same state.
They alleged that some of the beneficiaries from Borno, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states received N2,500 transport allowance as against N10,000 promised to them.
Khalid Abdulkadir who spoke on behalf of Gombe state contingents said some of the beneficiaries from his state received N2,500 as against N10,000 while some had not yet received feeding allowances.
“Adamawa participants were promised N2,500 transport fees while those from outside Adamawa were to receive N10,000 each as transport allowance. We are from Gombe but many of us received only N2,500 from an individual, Ezeilo Ugochukwu while those of us who got N10,000 were paid directly from N-Power. So we became suspicious of the process”, he said.
He also faulted failure to pay the feeding allowances of many of the participants one week after commencement, saying some of them who came from other states had to abandon the programme because they could not endure hunger.
Another participant, Gambo Danjuma decried the discrepancies in payment between trainees from Taraba, saying federal government should investigate why an individual, Ezeilo Ugochukwu sent reduced allowances to some of the beneficiaries instead of the N-Power office.
“Those of us from other states who received N10,000 as transport fee were paid directly from N-Power office while those who were paid only N2,500 got the money through an individual, Ezeilo Ugochukwu. The federal government should probe the process to ensure accountability and transparency”, he stated.
The trainees called on the centre to provide medical care and improve the condition of hostels for the trainees.
They urged government to provide identification cards for them to avoid infiltration by criminals, saying the identity cards would assist the internal security guards to easily identify trainees.
When contacted, the head of the programme centre, Engr. Gbenga Odubayo admitted that there was mistake in disbursing the allowances, promising that all trainees from states other than Adamawa would finally get their N10,000 transport allowance as the matter was being resolved.
He said a total of 1,000 participants were receiving training on computer, tablet and phone repairs among other skills, saying the turn out and performance was impressive.
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