the Minister of Finance, Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, has directed the immediate termination of the partnership
between the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme and Forcecom
Networks Limited on the Graduate Internship Scheme.
This is contained in a statement issued
to journalists in Abuja on Thursday by the Communication Specialist to
the SURE-P, Mr. Suleiman Haruna.
The statement said the minister further directed that the firm should be investigated by security agencies.
The News Agency of Nigeria reported that
the minister said the firm should be investigated for deploying interns
to work on mobile money business months after they were deployed to the
company.
She
also accused the firm for presenting time sheets, which showed that the
interns had worked and requested payment of their monthly stipend when
they did not work.
According to the statement, the GIS
guidelines stipulated that interns should be paid for the number of days
they worked every month.
Okonjo-Iweala said the Managing Director
of Forcecom Networks, Mr. Paul Okafor, coerced the interns to sign an
undertaking to pay N7,500 out of their monthly stipend for training with
the Lekki Business School.
She also alleged that the company
fraudulently convinced the graduates to register in January 2015 but set
their hire date as November 2, 2014.
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