Information from the Ministry of Finance indicate that  there was massive irregularities and fraud in the ongoing Youth Enterprise With Innovation in Nigeria, YOUWIN, programme of the federal government.

YOUWIN is a youth empowerment programme begun by the Goodluck Jonathan administration to support Nigerian youths who have viable business ideas with the financial strength to carry out their ideas, thereby reducing poverty and unemployment.

The programme was sustained by the current Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government, though with some modifications.

According to a report by The PUNCH newspaper, it was discovered that some senior civil servants gave out or facilitated slots worth between N7 million and N10 million each to their spouses, children and friends who, if judged by their proposals and business ideas, would not have qualified for the grants.

The report stated that the fraud was discovered following a probe ordered by the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun.

“The fraud uncovered in the programme made the minister to restructure the programme and turn its focus into enterprise education,” the Punch quoted an unnamed source as saying.

There have been different allegations of undue favouritism and nepotism in the way the YOUWIN programme was being handled over the years.

Some of the applicants, especially those who were not successful claimed that some of the winners simply copied and pasted the plans of other applicants and yet were awarded the grants, while some others were instructed by some civil servants to use specific consultants if they wanted 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 was quoted as saying.

“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 N10 million each. In another instance, a son of one of the directors in the ministry was given N10 million.

“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.”

The Punch newspaper reports that some documents seen by its reporters revealed a lot of irregularities.

According to the newspaper, one of the documents indicated that a former director in the ministry of finance might have awarded a slot to his son, but investigators are still probing to see whether the son’s company met all the requirements.

Another document showed that two awardees shared the same surname and the same address, while yet another document indicated that two grants were given to a couple running two different companies.

The husband’s company is said to be involved in building and construction projects while the wife’s business, stated on the form, is ‘food and catering’ services.

Sources in the ministry explained that the ongoing probe would see investigators thoroughly combing through the information supplied by the 1,491 awardees.

Recall that some YOUWIN awardees in 2016 protested against the Muhammadu Buhari administration, alleging neglect.

After the protest, a Director of Information at the Ministry of Information and Culture, Na’inna Dambatta, said a total of 18,000 young entrepreneurs were trained in management and business skills under the YOUWIN programme.

Dambatta added that 3,900 of the trainees, including 1,200 women, got non-repayable grants ranging from N1 million to N10 million.