The Senate Leader, Muhammad Ali Ndume, on Sunday, objected to the use of online registration to select beneficiaries of Federal Government’s N500 billion Social Intervention Fund.
Addressing newsmen in Maiduguri, Borno State, Ndume, who represents Borno South Senatorial District, observed that using internet registration for the programme would deprive many qualified Nigerians from benefiting.
Ndume said: “The N500 billion Social Intervention Fund has started on a wrong footing.
“So we are not going to agree.
“We are not going to let it pass like other previous interventions without tangible gains.
“We do not want it to be like the SureP where nobody was sure.”
Ndume pointed out that the new concept on MPower requiring teachers, market women and graduates to register online was faulty.
He said: “How can they say that everybody must go online and register when most states are offline.
“In fact, Borno is even worse than off-line.”
He said registering online will end up in corrupt practice as some individuals will use fake names to register.
Ndume explained: “The National Assembly is going to insist that the programme must be done on Local Government Areas basis or even on ward basis because there is no ward in Nigeria without a qualified graduate.
“So let each ward or LGA be represented like we did during the police recruitment.”
He said that his position was based on the outcome of similar programmes in the past.
He further said: “Most often what they do is to hire a consultant who will charge about 5 per cent of the total money as his fee and by the time you remove 5 per cent of N500 billion, you have already started depleting the resources.
“Again, the consultant will start asking the participants to go to one portal and register with scratch card.
“This is also unacceptable.”
Ndume said that the National Assembly would take a stand on the issue next Wednesday to ensure that the right thing was done in the implementation of the programme.
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