774,000 FG’s job: Benue beneficiaries protest 3-month unpaid stipends

Beneficiaries of the federal government’s nationwide 774,000 Special Public Work (SPW) programme in Vandeikya Local Government…

Beneficiaries of the federal government’s nationwide 774,000 Special Public Work (SPW) programme in Vandeikya Local Government Area of Benue State yesterday protested the nonpayment of their three months stipends.

 The beneficiaries from Vandeikya who stormed Makurdi, the state capital, with placards bearing various inscriptions, said they were yet to receive their stipends long after their SPW ended.

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Their spokesman, Bebatso Emmanuel, urged the federal government to urgently pay each of them N60,000 for the three months which they had already worked for as captured in the scheme.

 Another beneficiary, Daniel Iorrumun, claimed that an official of Zenith Bank in Makurdi told him that the federal government had not remitted the money.

When contacted, the bank’s branch manager, Agbo Attah, simply said, “This branch is handling only Vandeikya/Kwande LGAs. The matter is not from us. We are not the ones holding their payment.”

Meanwhile, the state coordinator of National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Musa Sadauki, told our correspondent on the telephone that there was no connivance, admitting however that Vandeikya and Kwande LGAs were yet to be paid.