An ongoing probe, ordered by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, has uncovered a massive fraud in the Federal Government Youth Enterprise With Innovation In Nigeria programme.
The PUNCH reports that investigators had already discovered that some senior civil servants gave out or facilitated slots worth between N7m and N10m each to their spouses, children and friends.
An original initiative of the ministry which began during the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, YouWin was conceived to help youth entrepreneurs grow existing businesses and create employment.
The results of the probe had not been concluded by the investigators, were so worrisome that the minister had decided that the entire program should be restructured.
It was not stated, however, if any of the country’s anti-graft agencies had joined the investigators in the probe.
It was also worth recalling that countless times in the past, the YouWin project had been dogged by allegations of nepotism and underhand dealings by top civil servants for years.
It was learnt that the BVN verification, which exposed the fraud in the programme and initiated the probe, might lead to the indictment of some senior civil servants, with the probe seeing investigators thoroughly combing through information supplied by 1,491 awardees.