49,625 NYSC members to miss camp for lack of funds

The Ministry of Youths and Sports Development has hinted that the Nation­al Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is yet to get its allocation of over N13 billion and cannot mobilise 49,625 Nigerian graduates of the Batch A/2 for the one-year man­datory national assignment.
The NYSC had on Tuesday issued a statement, suspending the call to camp of the prospec­tive corps members, siting lack of funds to mobilise them.

The Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr. Solomon Dalung, told the Senate Committee on Sports on Thursday that the Fed­eral Government has not released the money to cater for the feed­ing, kitting, transport and pay­ment of the monthly stipends of the intending corps members.
Dalung regretted that the amount was not covered by the 2016 Budget despite the fact that it was defended by the ministry before the committees of the Na­tional Assembly.
He said: “The NYSC issue has become so volatile because of the reaction of the youths in­volved. The problem we are hav­ing with the Batch A/2 of the NYSC in 2016 was much antic­ipated by the corps management itself and the ministry as far back as 2015. We foresaw the upsurge in terms of increase in number, and we drew the attention of the government in writing. Since De­cember 2, 2015, we have been ex­changing correspondences that we intended to avert an obvious ugly situation.
“In view of the fact that young Nigerians who have so much zeal for national service have seen the programme as a significant feature in their lives. There is a burning zeal that is attached to the youth service corps. So, we drew the attention of the govern­ment and we have been writing since then till even April when we wrote the last memo. And of course, we had an upsurge of about 49,625 which would re­quire a budgetary allocation of N13 billion. This would cater for their monthly allowances, trans­port, kitting, feeding and oth­ers. Since the beginning of this week, I have been shuttling be­tween my office and the office of the President and other ministries involved to see how we can ad­dress the issue.
“The sad aspect of it is that this is not captured in our 2016 Budget, but in our budgetary pro­posal to the Ministry of Budget and Planning, we clearly indicat­ed this. Even in our defence be­fore the National Assembly com­mittees, the issue of this NYSC kept reflecting, still it was not captured when the budget was signed. The way we are now, it is only for us to try to see whether we can get supplementary budg­etary concession for the purpose of funding this programme. We have been directed to liaise with the Ministry of Budget and Plan­ning to see where we can mop up the fund to address the issue. It is indeed a very serious nation­al emergency that requires some form of urgency in addressing it,” Dalung said.
Earlier, a member of the com­mittee, Senator Shabba Lafiaji, had regretted that the ministers of Finance and Budget and Plan­ning were not able to honour the invitation, despite their receipt of the committee’s invitation.
The Chairman of the Com­mittee, Senator Obinna Ogba, who along with other mem­bers condemned the inability of the Budget Office to include the camping of the NYSC members in the 2016 Budget despite the series of correspondences from both the committee and the Ministry of Youth and Sports to it, called for an urgent interven­tion from the Presidency.