Over fifteen thousand beneficiaries of the Federal government’s Npower support programme has received N13.3b Npower Stipends in Kwara State.
TheConscience reports that a total number of 15,246 beneficiaries of both batches A and B Npower beneficiaries in Kwara received a total sum of N13.3 billion disbursed by the Federal Government’s National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) before the beneficiaries exited the programme.
In a statement on Wednesday September 8, the state representative of the NSIP, Bashirah Abdulrazaq, explained that the batch A beneficiaries of the programme were engaged for 42 months and were paid a total sum of N7.4 billion while the Npower batch B beneficiaries spent about 24 months and received a sum of N5.7 billion from the government funded NSIP Programme.
She added that “non-graduates received the sum of N10,000 every month and were engaged for a period of 24 months with a total sum of over N24 million spent.”
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This online newspaper gathers that the State government in a bid to avoid throwing out the beneficiaries after exiting the Npower support programme has created a similar support programme called K-Power.
Meanwhile, Abdulrazaq also gave updates on a related Trader Moni programme which she announced has benefitted 10,000 residents with over N1.3billion released to them for trading purposes but has sadly not been refunded.
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She lamented that beneficiary’s personal details data like phone numbers and addresses were unavailable, thus, making it difficult to track them for repayment, blaming it on the ‘national cake’ mindset. : “The programme is designed to provide soft loans to boost small scale businesses in the markets which Vice President Yemi Osinbajo flagged off sometime last year to support women with N10,000 as soft loans to be paid back and then enjoy the next stage of N50,000.
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She further highlighted some empowerment initiatives of the state government, including Kwara state Social investment programme, (KWASSIP), which caters to owo arugbo- stipend for the aged, owo isowo- soft loans to petty traders, ounje ofe -home grown free feeding programme for public primary school pupils and K-Power for the unskilled youth.
