Elections: Why deployed prison personnel yet to get allowances after polls

The Nigerian Prison Service (NPS) has given reasons for the non-payment of election duty allowances to its personnel deployed during the just concluded 2019 general election.

Some of the personnel who asked not to be named expressed their grievances on Monday.

They said they are yet to get their allowances from the prison service while other sister security services had paid the cash.

The police, customs, fire service, immigration all deployed personnel during the polls.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the prisons’ spokesperson, Francis Enobore, in February, admitted to this newspaper, that the NPS is yet to pay the allowances of about 5,150 deployed personnel.

He also assured this medium the personnel would get their allowances after the rescheduled February 23 date for the 2019 general election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), conducted the Presidential and National Assembly elections on February 23, while governorship and state assembly elections were held on March 9.

Supplementary elections in five states were held on March 23.

When PREMIUM TIMES contacted Mr Enobore through a telephone interview on Monday, he also admitted that the deployed NPS personnel are yet to be paid their allowances.

He said the prison service details that were sent for payment to the Ministry of Finance were not properly captured.

He said the error was not intentional.

”They have not been paid, but the processes are going on. Initially, when they called for the payment (details) of personnel of all the services that contributed, they were all captured centrally,” Mr Enobore said.

”But for some reasons, prisons were not captured, and it was just a mistake that was not intended, and it can happen anywhere. While others (other deployed security personnel) were getting their money, our own (prison) was not captured,” he said.

”I wouldn’t know where the error arose from. All I can tell you is that we complied with the request of names of personnel that were to be deployed for the exercise. I can assure you that it was not a deliberate error,” he added.

He also said Comptroller General Ja’afaru Ahmed, has given a directive for the personnel that was not properly captured to submit their account details again.

He said the personnel would get their payment ”in the next couple of days”.

”We have been working on it as a committee, and there are indications that the monies would soon be released, and as soon as the money is released, we would begin disbursement of the money,” he said.