This was announced on Monday in Abuja by Retired Brig, General Paul Boroh, Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme. He added that a total of 3,232 beneficiaries will be exiting the programme.
The programme was billed to last for an initial period of five years. Hence, it was due to end last December, but the General explained that the extension became necessary in order to allow the government draw and implement an exit strategy to save huge cost of implementing the amnesty programme. This was also to forestall a resurgence of militancy in the oil- rich Niger Delta after it was ended.
The 3,232 amnesty beneficiaries have been trained as entrepreneurs and equipped to start their own businesses and he added that another batch of 1, 042 are currently receiving starter packs to enable them start off on their own.
General Boroh explained that the exit of the 3, 232 beneficiaries is expected to help the government save approximately N 2.521 billion in payments of stipends in the 2016 budget.
“Depending on budgetary allocation and release, the Amnesty Office plans to exit an additional 2,958 beneficiaries by the end of the year which would amount to N 2.307billion that would have been spent on stipends payments “, he stated.
17,322 of the 30,000 individuals earmarked for the programme have been trained, leaving a balance of 12,678. General Boroh said the Amnesty programme has secured admission and scholarship for 5234 beneficiaries in local and 131 offshore institutions.
No comments:
Post a Comment