Pauline Onyibe, Yenagoa
The Strategic Communication Committee (SCC) of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) has said it has discovered that an individual alone was receiving stipends of 33 persons at the Presidential Amnesty Programme Office through fraudulent means.
Speaking at the weekend in Yenagoa, the SCC, led by its Chairman and ex-agitator, Nature Dumale Kieghe, stated that the discovery was made by the external and internal auditors.
He said about 513 persons were linked to multiple payments insisting that the new management of PAP was poised to repositioning the scheme for optimum performance stating that following the development, the interim administrator, Maj.-Gen. Barry Ndiomu (rtd), immediately initiated verification of all beneficiaries of the programme as part of the ongoing investigation.
He explained that the audit and efforts of Ndiomu to clean the payroll was the reason some beneficiaries of the programme were yet to receive their monthly stipends adding that all affected and genuine outstanding stipends would be paid after verifications.
Describing Ndiomu’s efforts as proactive, Dumale said upon assumption of office, the amnesty boss renegotiated all existing contracts with vendors and in the process saved N1.5 billion for PAP insisting that he initiated internal and external audit of PAP’s database.
