NYSC to receive N19,792,018,400 for corps members’ mobilization
President Muhammadu Buhari, has written to the Senate, seeking
approval for the virement of N180 billion from N500 billion appropriated
for the Special Intervention Programme, to finance key projects
including the mobilization of National Youth Service Corps, NYSC,
members.
According to the letter read at the commencement of Tuesday’s plenary
by the Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, the amnesty
initiative and the Public Service Wage Adjustment, PSWA, numbered among
projects to be financed, as amnesty will get a sum of N35 billion.
“The total recurrent expenditure requirement to be transferred is
N166,630,886,954, while the capital expenditure requirement to be
transferred is N14,208,367,476,” Buhari said.
A breakdown of the areas the money would be transferred showed PSWA
taking the lion share of N71,800,215,270; amnesty, N35billion;
mobilisation of corps members, N19,792,018,400.
Others are: foreign missions, N14,667,230,014; Operation Lafiya Dole,
N13,933,093,000; Nigerian Air Force, N12,708,367,476; internal
operations of the Armed Forces, N5,205,930,270; margin for increase in
cost, N2 billion; Presidential Initiative for the North East,
N1.5billion.Also, contingency, salary shortfall for the Public Complaints Commission
gets N1.2 billion each, even as feeding of cadets at the Police
Academy, Kano, and augmentation of meal subsidy for Unity Colleges
receive N932,400,000 and N900,000,000.
The President, while explaining need for more funds, said: “Only
N20,000,000,000 (already fully released) was provided in the 2016 budget
for the Niger Delta amnesty programme. Consequently, allowances to
ex-militants have only been paid up to May 2016. This is creating a lot
of restiveness and compounding the security challenge in the region.”
As regards NYSC, he said: “The provision for NYSC in the 2016 budget
is inadequate to cater for the number of corps members to be mobilised
this year. In fact, an additional N8.5 billion is required to cover the
backlog of 129, 469 members, who are currently due for call-up but would
otherwise be left out till next year, due to funding constraints.”
The NYSC had
announced the date for the Orientation Course for prospective 2016 Batch B corps members, disclosing that the programme would run from 24th of November to 13th December .
