Finance minister reportedly uncovers fraud in YouWin programme

A massive fraud has been allegedly uncovered in the Federal Government

Punch reports that the fraud was uncovered following an ongoing probe, ordered by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.

A source in the ministry of finance reportedly hinted that investigators had already discovered fraud involving top senior civil servants in the initiative which was launched by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan to help youth entrepreneurs grow existing businesses and create employment.

Though the source insisted that the probe had not been concluded by the investigators, it was reported that their initial findings were so worrisome that the minister had decided that the entire programme should be restructured.

“The fraud uncovered in the programme made the minister to restructure the programme and turn its focus into enterprise education,” the source added.

ALSO READ: President approves payment of N2.6bn to 638 YouWin beneficiaries

“Actually, allegations were persistent that there was racketeering. Some of the applicants, especially those who lost out, claimed that some of the winners simply copied and pasted the plans of other applicants in order to win.

“Some of them also said they were asked by some civil servants to use specific consultants in order to be considered.

“Contrary to the rules of the game, awards were also given to some entrepreneurs that were operating outside Nigeria. In fact, some of these people simply took the cash and migrated to foreign countries.”

The source reportedly said further, “Some of the members of the team used it to set up friends and family as awardees. In one case, a husband and his wife used the same address and pocketed N10m each. In another instance, a son of one of the directors in the ministry was given N10m.

“When the (current) administration got into power, one of the first things that the ministry did was to ask for the BVN of awardees. It was an attempt to find out if some of the awardees got more than a single slot and whether senior civil servants awarded slots to their family members.”

It was further reported that the investigators consisted of ministry of finance officials and it is unsure if any of the country’s anti-graft agencies had joined the investigators.