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| FILE PHOTO: Medical team and beneficiaries during naca/sure-p free medical outreach at akpagher mbatiav community of gboko, benue on tuesday (24/02/15). |
SURE-P was established by former President Goodluck Jonathan in the wake of the 2012 fuel price increase and nationwide strike, to reinvest savings from the reduction of subsidies on petroleum products.
The scheme has however come under increased scrutiny lately over allegations of corruption.
Its former chairman, Christopher Kolade, said last week that he resigned his position in 2013 because its operations were becoming tainted with corruption and politics, thereby losing its credibility.
In 2014, SURE-P received N180 billion as budget in addition to N88.3 billion unspent money from 2013.
This year, the government made no new funds available for the programme as a result of the fall in oil prices, the programme director, Ali Fatoma, told PREMIUM TIMES.
He said the funds currently expended for SURE-P programmes were from the N21 billion rolled over from last year’s unspent budget.
“The beauty of it is that unspent monies are rolled over to the next year,” he said.
He said as a result of lack of funds some interns of SURE-P’s Graduate Internship Scheme, GIS, were not paid between January and April.
The GIS had a budget of N10 billion in 2014, out of which N2 billion was rolled over to 2015.
“The information we received is that Project Implementation Unit, PIU, has gotten some funds to pay its backlog. And now they are battling with May June and July salaries,” Mr. Fatoma said.
The head of communication of Graduate Internship Scheme, GIS, Haruna Suleiman, said interns were later paid from funds provided by the Ministry of Finance.
He added that the previous administration took the measures in preparation of a possible change in government.
“The GIS was supposed to run up to December; to allow government decide whether to continue with the program.
“The 2016 budget will now be determined by the federal government, whatever they decide to do. That is if they decide to retain the program or scrap it. But we believe they will continue, because of the number of graduates that are involved in it,” he added.
Mr. Suleiman said programmes like the GIS could only be rounded up in December, which was the reason the ministry allocated money for it to continue till the end of the year.
Source: Premium Times
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