Social investment programme monitors ask President Buhari to sack minister of humanitarian affairs over unpaid monthly stipend

TRACKING__Independent monitors of the National Social Investment Programme have called for the sack of Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq.

The team made the demand on Saturday while expressing their grievances following the refusal of the minister to pay their accumulated monthly stipends.

Findings by SaharaReporters showed that the NSIP provides young Nigerians with job training and education while also allowing them to receive monthly stipends of N30, 000 from the Nigerian Government.

The independent monitors supervise various programmes of government under the Social Investment Program including N-power, Home Grown School Feeding, Tradermoni, Marketmoni and the Conditional Cash Transfer in the 36 states of the country.

Some of them disclosed that despite pleas and letters to the minister, she had refused to offset their March and April stipends while that of May had also not been paid.

Titus Omotayo, one of the beneficiaries of the programme, told our correspondent that the NSIP was his full time job as a graduate and that he had been having difficulties paying his bills since his stipend stopped coming regularly.

Omotayo said he and other monitors had been preforming their responsibilities yet 70 per cent have not been paid their accumulated stipend by the minister.

Another beneficiary, Godwin Lerve, said the team members had been in the dark concerning their payment and had resolved on calling out the minister over her refusal to pay their stipends.

He said, “A lot of us have not been paid and that is why they are calling for her removal or redeployment from that office.

“I heard that she is planning to streamline the programme probably to remove some persons from payment and I feel this is not the best.”

Abiodun Ogunleye, another monitor, said they had appealed to the minister several times for the prompt payment of their stipend but she had failed to heed their appeals.

“We are left with no other choice than to passionately appeal to the President to send Mrs Sadiya Umar Farouq back to where he picked her from before she ruins the scheme.”

Salisu Na’inna Danbatta, Special Adviser on Media to the minister, could not be reached for comments.

However, an official of the ministry revealed that the matter was already being addressed.

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SaharaReporters gathered that issues concerning payment of stipend for the independent monitors began after the Social Investment Programme was moved outside the office of Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, by President Buhari last October to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.