The Federal Government has said it is not certain there will be an increase in the monthly allowance of serving members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
The Minister of Youth Development, Jamila Bio-Ibrahim, made this known on Sunday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
Bio-Ibrahim said there are no immediate plans to increase the monthly allowance of corps members following the food inflation and increasing cost of living in the nation.
The minister stated that the government would find innovative ways of ensuring that corps members’ welfare is well taken of.
She said, “We can’t say for sure, we all understand that resources are dwindling, even oil revenues are not as they used to be but we will find innovative ways of ensuring that corps members’ welfare is taken of. ”
Recall that former President Muhammadu Buhari, in January 2020, raised allowance for corps members from N19,000 to N33,000, about a year after he signed the new minimum wage bill into law in April 2019.
Speaking further, the minister said the government has announced a reform of the NYSC scheme and is planning to make it a revenue-generating scheme and agency.
She said, “When it comes to remuneration and looking totally at the holistic funding of the NYSC, we have announced a reform of the NYSC scheme itself. So, we want the scheme to go beyond that social programme of government to be that revenue-generating scheme and agency.
“The reforms which transform the NYSC into a revenue-generating agency and prepare the corps members for the job market and to be decently and gainfully employed or to be employers of labour through entrepreneurship and of course, perfect matching into primary assignment and all the support they need in that career path.”
