UBA, Zenith, five others under pressure to pay 774,000 jobs participants

Seven banks are under immense pressure from the Federal Government to pay all 774,000 participants of the Extended Special Public Works programme.

The affected banks are the UBA, Fidelity, Heritage, Zenith, Access, FCMB and Yobe Microfinance Bank.

The seven banks handling the payment of the stipend were reportedly summoned on Monday by the FG.

Officials of the Federal Ministry of Labour, National Directorate of Employment and the participating banks met on Monday on the issue.

The three-month intervention was launched on January 5, 2021 and ended on April 5.

It was meant to cushion the effect of COVID-19 by providing jobs to 774,000 people in all the local government areas in the federation.

The participants were to be paid N20,000 each for three months. Some sources said the money might be in custody of some banks.

Besides not paying them, it was learnt that the selected participants were not issued with working tools despite the N4 billion earmarked for the purpose.

The actual amount released for the payment has not been made public amid allegations of wrongdoings.

Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, supervising the public works programme, said the amount so far released was N26bn.

He also directed all the participants, who had no problems with their bank accounts, to immediately proceed to their banks and clarify issues.

He said, “For those who do not have problems with their BVNs but have not received payments, they should go to the banks that registered them to clarify the issues.

“The banks are mandated to issue ATM cards to all participants. Participants are therefore encouraged to collect their ATM cards from the banks so that they can access their payments from various cash points without necessarily going to the banks.

“Participants are assured that their stipends would be paid as soon as all issues are resolved.”

The minister explained further that the meeting agreed that banks were no longer restricted to their initially allotted local governments.

He said, “Consequently, selected participants are at liberty to approach any of the seven selected banks nearest to the local government where they were selected.

“So far, the NDE has authorised the payments of one-month stipends to all those that have been verified. As shown above, all parties are making strenuous efforts to resolve issues of those yet to receive the first month stipends before the commencement of the second tranche of payments.”

A document released after Monday’s meeting showed that Fidelity Bank registered 104,596, verified 96,413 and paid 92,394 participants.

UBA registered 100,800, verified 87,427 and paid 73,531. Heritage Bank registered 102,000, verified 84,620 and paid 61,800; Zenith Bank registered 92,700, verified 65,824 and paid 58,732; Access Bank registered 105,000; verified 62,733 and paid 58,638; FCMB registered 118,209; verified 50,083 and paid 32,696 while Yobe Microfinance Bank registered 16,642; verified 16,642 and paid 16,642.