N1.3BN POSTING FEES BY CORPS MEMBERS SHOULD BE PROBED - CAIFAL

Citizens Advocacy Initiative for Accountable Leadership, CAIFAL, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to investigate the N1.3billion realised from the illegal N3,000 paid by prospective National Youth Service Corp, NYSC, members for them to access their postings in the last three years.


Chief Abdullai Dania, Chairman, board of trustees of CAIFAL, addressed newsmen in Lagos, on the illegal registration fees charged prospective NYSC, members by the management of the Corp since 2014, said even though the private company hired by the management of NYSC had admitted during a public hearing on the illegal levy that about N1.6bn was realised, the group investigation shows that over N2.4bn had so far been realised.

He said, “Since 2014, NYSC introduced the payment of N3,000 as fees paid by graduating Nigerian students popularly referred to as “prospective corps members” (PCM), who are to be “mobilised into the one year “compulsory and mandatory service to their fatherland.

“To charge Nigerian Young Graduates or PCM money, as a condition precedent for them to be mobilized to participate in the NYSC and to be re-deployed after been mobilized, is very wrong, improper, fraudulent, illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional, condemnable and conspicuously contradictory to the positive change and anti-corruption policies of the current Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and we demand the president and the EFCC to probe same.
“To underscore the level of this desecration, impunity and disdain, the perpetrators of this fraud, went a notch by further introducing and collecting N1,000 from any mobilized Corps Member who wishes to redeploy or relocate from one State to another. So, the NYSC Scheme, contrary to its primary essence, is fast becoming a revenue generating Agency like the Customs, Immigration, NNPC and the likes.


“The perpetrators of these fraudulent charges have claimed that the fees collecting project was a Public Private Partnership, PPP, arrangement. The question is: does that confer the right on them to abuse their offices and violate the Law setting up the NYSC, and even the constitution?''