Date: 2018-01-16

The Kwara State Focal Person of the Federal Government's Social Intervention Programme (SIP); N- Power, Elder Samuel Ayobola, yesterday, declared that the second phase of the programme suffered delay because 635 Kwarans jettisoned the offer.

Ayobola, who doubles as the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Sports and Youths Development stressed that the 635 out of the 937 beneficiaries selected from 3,000 applicants failed to show up for physical verification.

He however noted that government has commenced process to supplement from the list of the applicants adding that no fresh exercise will be conducted.

"There are 3,000 applicants from Kwara State, 937 were picked but only 302 turned up for the verification. There won't be fresh applications but replacement will be done from the list of 3,000 that applied initially.

"We await the headquarters in Abuja for perfection of the process. But as soon as the replacement is done, we will do physical verification for them and they will start work in their different places of primary assignments. Hopefully, they should be able to get February pay.

"There won't be fresh applications because abinito, there are 3,000 vacancies and we have over one million applications. They will only make use of the list of those who applied before and who as well participated in the online test. We will only have supplementary candidates' list," the focal person divulged.

Speaking on the salary backlog owed serving volunteers, Ayobola said the outstanding salaries is yet to be totally upset adding that those concerned have been instructed to go back to their places of primary assignments to collect attestation form that will reflect how long they have been working.

He said, "What they owe individual is different, some are five months, three months, even two. There is no uniformity, but the affected volunteers are implored to go to the institutions they work for and secure attestation letter that shows how long they have worked."

Ayobola, while reacting to the question on when the home grown school feeding programme will kick start in the state, he maintained that state government is yet to provide the necessary logistics.