The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has disclosed its plans to settle unpaid payments to its enrollment agents – Front-End Partners (FEPs) – within the first quarter of 2024.
Recall that NIMC engaged the agents to assist in the enrollment of Nigerians for the National Identification Number (NIN), in 2021.
In a recent letter to Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the minister of Interior, the agents expressed their dissatisfaction with the massive devaluation of the Naira, bank loans used to pay for equipment and other miscellaneous expenses, money owed to consumables suppliers, and an accumulation of salary arrears owed to staff.
They requested a meeting with the minister in a letter titled “RE: Request For Meeting On Payment Of Outstanding Enrollment Fees To FEPS And Matters Arising In The Commission,” dated October 12, 2023, in order to better understand their challenges.
Engineer Abisoye Coker-Odusote, the DG of NIMC, in a statement issued on Wednesday expressed her sympathy with the FEPs who have been burdened with running their businesses for two years without payment.
The agents had added over 60 million NINs to the NIMC database within the period of their engagement, even as Coker-Odusote affirmed that the revalidation exercise carried out recently for the FEPs had helped the Commission ascertain the debt.
“The Commission, under my leadership, has conducted a revalidation exercise to review the outstanding payments which the new management inherited to offset the debt after going through a due audit process to validate the claims made by the FEPs.
“In the process, we found out that some of the invoices submitted by the FEPs did not tally with the enrolment figures shown on the database thus prompting the revalidation exercise to confirm the true and accurate enrolment information.
“Notwithstanding, we are wrapping up the audit process, and the activation of the FEPs will be done according to the outcome of the validation exercise. We sympathise with our partners over the delay and appeal for understanding especially as the new NIMC management is just a few months in the saddle and has been working on resolving all inherited debts,” the DG said.
Coker-Odusote noted that the previous management of the Commission could not clear the outstanding payments due to a lack of funds, while assuring that the current management is working hard to source for the funds to clear the debt.
“I, therefore, use the opportunity to reiterate that the revalidation exercise was aimed at sanitising the system as well as ensuring efficient and effective enrolment processes in line with international best practices of securing citizens’ data,” she posited.
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