Investigations have revealed that the payroll of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) for reformed Niger Delta militants is padded with duplicated names.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the presidential amnesty payroll is padded with 400 duplicated names as revealed by Mr Nneotabase Egbe, Special Adviser on Media to the Interim Administrator of PAP, Col. Milland Dikio (rtd).
Recall that repentant militants from the Niger Delta voluntarily surrendered their weapons to the Federal Government in 2009.
Arms and ammunition from over 29,000 ex-militants were recovered, and essential information on the background and stations of the disarmed ex-militants were collected.
TNG reports the ex-militants were then counseled, trained, documented and were enrolled into the programme.
According to Mr Egbe, the programme has been undergoing reforms in the last one year after Dikio took over the helm of affairs.
He said the reform is already yielding fruits.
He further stated that efforts are being intensified to discover the identities of persons receiving monies through the identified fake accounts.
“The irregularities noticed a year ago led to the investigation and verification of the 30,000 accounts receiving the N65,000 each monthly stipends.
“The scrutiny has so far revealed that some of the accounts were fake and fraudulently used to siphon funds meant for original ex-agitators.
“Immediately the investigation commenced, the amnesty office stopped the stipends of the accounts undergoing probe. It was the right thing to do.
“I can tell you that some of the accounts had been cleared and their owners will soon receive their stipends.
“But efforts are being intensified to discover the identities of persons receiving monies through identified fake accounts,” Egbe said.
TNG reports that with the revelation, the FG has lost over N3.4 billion to the ghost names on the payroll of the PAP.
However, Egbe said the PAP under Dikio was determined to cleanse the system to ensure that amnesty’s resources were expended on real and verifiable ex-agitators and not on impostors.
“Investigations also revealed that some contractors of the PAP office were not delivering their jobs in accordance with their terms of contracts,” he said.
TNG reports Egbe maintained that Dikio was determined to cleanse the system.