Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme(PAP), Major General Barry Tariye Ndiomu, has proferred reasons why the body decided to delist some ex-agitators from its database.
According to the Interim Administrator, the PAP as an organisation cannot be seen to condone fraudulent practices perpetrated by some ex-agitators and their collaborators in the agency.
He revealed that there were duplications of names in the database besides some individuals who have over the years changed their names multiple times with multiple or single BVN in order to defraud the programme.
He noted that there are situations whereby an individual was collecting the stipends meant for 10 to 33 persons every month. He said the situation is so bad that it has become increasingly difficult PAP to meet its obligations and commitments to its contractors and students on scholarship.
He noted the forensic audit he initiated have also discovered that some delegates under training have been collecting both training allowances and the monthly stipends.
Other beneficiaries who have undergone training and empowerment are still on the database receiving stipends instead of exiting from the programme.
Ndiomu stated also that some delegates on the bulk payment scheme are equally collecting the monthly stipends. Besides other forms of fraud in the system.
He said, no Administrator worth his calling will tolerate such mammoth malfeasance under his watch adding that as a lawyer he would not condone such evil.
He has assured those with clean records to contact the information centre of the agency for the the needed correction. He reiterated the fact that the on-going audit is not intended to witch-hunt any individual or group of persons but it was instituted to sanitize the system in the interest of the ex-agitators who have been short changed by their counterparts.
He has appealed to the ex-agitators and other interest groups in the region to buy-in into his structured plan to redefine the programme and to ensure sanity and accountability in the Amnesty Programme.
Very soon, he said, the ex-agitators will experience a new lease of life because of the innovation he is set to introduce in the days ahead. Ndiomu remarked that the delegates will be architects of the destiny in the new system.
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