The Senate through its Public Account Committee, has launched investigation into the Public Works Programme coordinated by National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in which 774,000 Nigerians were recruited with mandate of 1000 people per local government.
Federal government earnmarked N52 billion for the project in 2020 in which 774,000 Nigerians were paid N20,000 each for three months.
However implementation of the public works ran into trouble waters at the sitting of Senate Committee on Public Accounts on Tuesday when representative of National Directorate of Employment ( NDE), Isah Abdul appeared before it.
Abdul who is a Director in the agency, failed to convince members of the committee on transparency in the implementation of the programme across the 774 local government areas in the country as most of the committee members , said none of their constituents is known to be a beneficiary.
Specifically, Senator Thompson Sekibo said nobody in his constituency , has benefitted from the programme , wondering those they paid the N20,000 monthly stipends to, for three months.
Also, Senator Michael Nnachi said not a single person benefited from his Senatorial district and challenged the NDE to make available the alleged beneficiaries from his Senatorial district.
Consequently, the Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide ( PDP Edo South), unanimously resolved that the NDE should submit names, phones number, Accounts details of the 1000 beneficiaries in each of the 774 local governments within one week which was later extended to two weeks due to appeal made to that effect by Director Isah Abdul who represented the Director – General, Abubakar Fikpo.