The Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) Committee may lay-off 111,000 workers at the end of this month unless additional funds are made available, the Chairman of the scheme, Dr. Christopher Kolade, said while briefing the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on SURE-P in Abuja Thursday.
Kolade told the Senator Abdul Ningi Committee that the committee employed 3000 workers each from the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He lamented that out of a budget proposal of N27 billion meant to pay workers under its employment generation scheme, only N9 billion was approved in the 2013 budget.
He said the development had greatly hindered its target of employing 5000 workers per each state and the FCT on a monthly allowance of N10,000 each.
He said the Committee would not be able to meet its commitment to the 111,000 youths already engaged under the programme.
Kolade said: “This year for instance, I mentioned the fact the our target was to provide employment opportunity to 5,000 youths per state including the FCT and we started last year and in fact in all the states we got to the level of 3000 youths per state.
“We pay each of these people N10,000 per month so there is a lot of money involved in this.
“And so for instance in our budget to get to 5,000 per state this year and to maintain all of them, we needed 28.5 billion.
“What we estimated in the budget was 27 billion and this the Federal Government agreed and passed on to the National Assembly but when the budget came back from the National Assembly however, we found that the N27 billion had been reduced to N9 billion so there is a shortfall.
“We immediately alerted the executive of this and I believe the executive made representations to the National Assembly saying if we reduce this fund to that extent, we will be unable to carry out the Programme.
“Unfortunately, when the National Assembly returned with the final budget, it was still at N9 billion. So it means that we can now not only be unable to press forward in 5 000 per state, but that in fact continuing to pay the 3000 per state we have now as from the end of this month is impossible.
“We don’t have money in that budget to continue to pay this people. We have made presentations to the President and to the Vice President and as far as we know they are going to do their best to help but the truth of the matter is that we are short in that area and the implications of this are very serious because not only are we unable to carry out what we targeted to do but those young people who we promised to sustain in the programme throughout the year.
“It means even those that we are already paying this N10,000 a month, we are likely to have to go to them at the end of the month and say ‘sorry we cannot continue this programme’ and this will be a huge reversal for everyone, because the credibility of the entire programme will be damaged beyond repair.”
Meanwhile, Kolade denied that the SURE-P funds were being expended on projects the Federal Ministry of Works is already handling.
He also denied that most of the Committee’s funds were spent on running cost.
He informed the committee that out of the N180 billion made available to the Committee last year, N1billion was set aside for running cost.
Out of the N1billion, Kolade disclosed that the committee spent N432 million leaving a balance of N567 million.
He added that the committee has an outstanding balance of N157million of its running cost for this year.
In his response, Ningi said: “It is disturbing that the Federal Government who assigned you this responsibility failed to inform you that Mr. President in his amendment budget sought the leave of the National Assembly, to remove the N27billion.”
The Senate Committee however frowned at a situation where the Director General of the Budget Office is the accounting officer for SURE-P.
Senator Ningi wondered why the committee should not be allowed manage the funds allocated to it from savings on partial withdrawal of fuel subsidy in the country.
He said the committee will make formal presentation on the matter to the DG of the Budget Office.
When the committee sought to know if the SURE-P committee is actually aware of how much savings accrue to the Federal Government on a monthly basis, Kolade said its mandate is to liaise with the Ministry of Finance and Petroleum who have the responsibility to know of the accruals.
He added that the Committee is credited with N15billion monthly which equals 180billion annually.
The committee also wondered why the funds are at a flat rate of N15billion monthly when the rate of subsidy varies from month to month.
