About 11,000 candidates were shortlisted out of the over 34,700 candidates that applied for the Federal Government’s NPower job initiative in Oyo State.
The State Commissioner for Women Affairs, Community Development, Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs. Atinuke Osunkoya who is also the vocal person of the program made this disclosure in an exclusive interview with DAILY POST on Thursday in her office in Ibadan, the state capital.
She said with the figure, 34,700, Oyo State has the fifth largest applicants.
Osunkoya who promised to keep our correspondent posted on the actual number of those who are currently receiving monthly stipends and those who are yet to receive, informed that about 8,000 candidates were shortlisted for the N-Teach.
She added that 900 candidates were picked for N-Health, 1,600 for N-Agro while 620 candidates were shortlisted for N-Community Education before verification.
Osunkoya added that about four key areas have been identified as the major problems delaying the collection of the stipends.
” 34,700 actually applied for the job, out of which 11,000 were shortlisted. 8,000 candidates were shortlisted for the N-Teach, 900 for N-Health, 1,600 for N-Agro while 620 candidates were shortlisted for N-Community Education. These were shortlisted before verification.
“In terms of successful applicants beyond verification, I don’t have the data here, I will get back to you,”she said.
When asked to update the public on the number of those who are currently receiving stipends and those who are yet to be paid, Osunkoya said “I don’t have the number of those ones, as I said, I will get back to you. I don’t have that document now.
“Those who have problems, I will break them down in four ways. There are some who did not scale thorough the verification exercise, second reason is that there are those who have issues with their bank accounts, there are some who have issues with their names; in cases like that, they have mismatch names especially the female, there are some who omitted their bank details in their application.”
Osunkoya added that a desk officer who will be a civil servant will be appointed in each of the local government areas, stating that a liaison officer who will be a beneficiary will also be engaged in each of the 33 council areas to ease the work and decentralise the work of the scheme.
“As from Monday, the ministry has asked the local government to nominate a desk officer in order to decentralise our work.
“Also, a liaison officer/person who will be among the beneficiaries, he will be one of those receiving the stipends and have been clear without any problem. Those are the one that will serve as go between when we have a meeting, they will be the one to pass information across to others. So if we are going to have a round table meeting, they are the ones we will call.
“We have a database of those who have problems, we have pasted the list, just as I said, I will get back to you on the figure
“Those who have peculiar problems have been asked to come to the ministry, the state will compile the list and send to Abuja.”
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