joelpearl:
Beneficiaries of the National Power Sector
Apprenticeship Scheme, NAPSAS, has
petitioned the Chairman of the Senate Adhoc
Committee on Power, Senator Abubakar
Kyari, accusing the Permanent Secretary of
the Ministry of Power, Ambassador
Godknows Igali of diverting the N3.5 billion
meant for the payment of the beneficiaries
of the scheme.

In the petition submitted to Kyari, the
beneficiaries alleged that the ministry
recruited 7200 youths for the apprenticeship
scheme which was expected to last for six
months but stopped abruptly.

It added that each participants of the
scheme was expected to be paid N20,000
monthly stipend for six months after which
they may be absorbed into the power sector,
but that was not to be as at the moment, due
to failure of the permanent secretary to
implement the programme to the fullest
even after N3.5 billion has been budgeted
for it since last year.

The apprentices of the scheme disclosed
that they decided to protest and expose the
alleged scam being allegedly perpetrated
through the scheme by the power ministry because of the false claim made by the
permanent secretary that a total of 600
apprentices have been formally absorbed
into the power sector after their training. Thy
said Igali had claimed in the media that 600
NAPSAS had been recruited after completion
of their training and offered employment
across the eleven electricity Distribution
Companies otherwise known as DISCOS.

The aggrieved apprentices however
challenged Ambassador Igali to publish
names and addresses of those recruited by
the DISCOs after their trainings.

The petition reads in part: “NAPSAS is
capacity building Program that was flagged
off by the Federal Government, through the
Federal Ministry of Power, for various
categories of unemployed Nigeria youths, in
November 2014 with the overall purpose of
bridging the skilled manpower gaps
presently experienced in the power sector.

“In the Program guideline, it was stipulated
that the total number of participants will be 7400 from across the federation, with 200
participants each, to be drawn from the 36
states and the FCT.
“ It was also stipulated that the programme is
to last for six months with intensive hands-
on training and each participant would be
paid a monthly stipend of N20, 000 at
commencement by Federal Government
through Ministry of Power/NAPSA and
probably, be absorbed into the power sector
at the end of the six months training period.
“The Training was also scheduled to be
carried out by the National Power Training
Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN).

“Consequently, the Federal Government
flagged off the commencement of this
Programme at the Presidential Villa on
November 6, 2014 witnessed by some few
selected number of Participants (Trainees)
numbering up to 25 with open declaration by
President Jonathan that a total of N3.5 billion
had been earmarked for it, mostly for
payment of monthly N20, 000 stipends to
participants for six months training.
“The Training was supposed to be continued
immediately but suffered some delay, for
reasons no one cared to inform us, the
trainees about. until Monday December 15,
2014 when we were invited for the induction
exercise at Bolingo Hotels, Central Business
District Abuja by 10:00am during which
credentials of the entire trainees were
screened and final successful participants
selected .

“On the 2nd February 2015, the trainees were mobilized for the first phase of the
training, across the states and FCT for 10
days (2-13th feb., 2015), after we had earlier
registered through NAPTIN website.
”To our disappointment, the trainees were
not paid after that first phase, even when the
payment were made, it was only some of the
trainees in Abuja that were paid 18,000Naira
only as against 20,000 Naira budgeted for each trainee.

“We add here that after our training in
February, there were some adjustments to
the effect that some trainees with
qualification less than first degree, were
actually deployed into the field for their
fieldwork experience, while those with
degrees were redistributed to some other
areas like metering, solar, billing etc as
against what they had previously made as
their choices, and that brought about the
second theoretical training between May and
June 2015.

“On March 2, 2015, NAPTIN’s management
sent out text messages to us requesting from us the Trainees to reply with our Full
Name, Phone numbers, Passport
photograph and signature between March 2,
2015 and March 3, 2015 and send to a
provided
link napsastraining@naptin.org.ng” to
enable them process our Identity Card for
field posting.
“We all responded as requested but never
heard anything relating to Identity card,
neither were we given any form of identity
till date. We kept waiting to hear from
NAPSAS/ NAPTIN for what and when next
while we were sitting at home.

“On 22nd March 2015, we received another
text message from NAPTIN management
prompting us to report on Monday April 13,
2015 at the various selected designation
nationwide for a 16 weeks hands-on skills training on both Solar Installation and Maintenance as well as Metering depending
on the Field of Study and Qualification of the
Trainees which we responded to, but also
ended abruptly after two weeks without any
cogent reasons given or payments made.”