Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
With the whereabouts of N500 billion accruing to the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) still hazy, the Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and her counterpart, Petroleum Resources Minister Mrs. Dieziani Alison-Madueke are expected to appear before the Senate Ad-hoc panel probing SURE-P on Tuesday.
The finance minister is to defend before the Abdul Ningi-led Senate SURE-P Ad-hoc Panel the release of over N1.4 billion SURE-P funds for the Graduate Internship Scheme (GIS).
Ningi, in a letter addressed to the Minister, specifically requested her to state how the amount was spent by the Ministry of Labour to pay the Graduate Internship Scheme (GIS) beneficiaries between April 2012 and April 2013.
"In the light of this revelation, the committee would like be furnished with comprehensive record on how the quoted amount was spent including, but not limited to the list of beneficiaries, locations, and contact addresses among others" The letter added.
In September, the now resigned chairman of SURE-P, Dr. Christopher Kolade, told the Senate Committee on SURE-P that, N10,000 payments to 110,000 beneficiaries of SURE-P may be stopped due to paucity of funds.
According to Kolade, SURE-P disburses N10,000 on a monthly basis to 3,000 people across the 36 states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), a claim members of the Senate SURE-P panel found surprising and vowed to verify.
Giving analysis of SURE-P allocations, Kolade said that SURE-P received N180 billion last year and about N105 billion in 2013. He said SURE-P pays about N13 billion to beneficiaries monthly.
"As from this month (October), we (SURE-P) will have problems, not only that we are unable to meet our target; those young men, we are likely to go to them at the end of the programme to say, 'sorry we cannot continue with this'. This will damage the credibility of this programme," Kolade said to the Senators.
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