Corps Members to Get N500 Daily Allowance

The Nigerian government has approved that henceforth National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members will receive N500 as daily feeding allowance. Director General of the NYSC, Johnson Bamidele Olawumi, disclosed this yesterday at a House of Representatives Committee hearing on the N4, 000 online registration fee mandated for corps members. A civil society group launched a 'Say No Campaign' to protest the registration fee. It was during the hearing that Olawumi made the announcement about the new feeding allowance. He disclosed that the federal government approved N500 as feeding allowance for each corp member per day. He also disclosed that over N800 million was required to setup the computer registration system the NYSC is presently using for its online registration. While noting that the N4,000 for the online registration is voluntary, he said rather than request for money to install the infrastructure, he would prefer to canvass for increment of the current N19,800 allowance being to prospective Corp member. In his presentation, Mr. Ezenwa Nwagwu of 'Say No Campaign' called for the "reversal of the proposed N4,000 fee payment and where payment has been made, a refund to the prospective Corp members." Nwagwu stressed the need to "re-examine the laws establishing the NYSC that seems to have made the Director General of the Corp an exclusive preserve of serving military officers." Source: AIT