NYSC hunts for 75 ex-corps members over unpaid loans

The National Youth Service Corps Foundation is searching for about 75 corps members who took between N 300, 000 and N 400, 000 loans to start small businesses but refused to pay after about four years .

The defaulting corps members, who have now passed out , used their certificates as collateral , which was the only condition to access the loans .

Our correspondent learnt the corps members had abandoned their certificates with the foundation for almost four years .

The NYSC Foundation Chief Executive Officer , Bako Ventim, confirmed this in an exclusive interview on Monday during the opening of Skills’ Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development workshop at the NYSC Orientation Camp in Kubwa, Abuja .

The foundation was in the camp to donate 10 sewing machines to the camp for SAED training .

The director said, “ We have been providing loans to corps members and our interest rate is one digit . There is no collateral except the NYSC certificate and two guarantors . We make the conditions very flexible so that the corps members can benefit from these loans .

“ We have a challenge where corps members have refused to pay back the loans . We have over 100 corps members who took the loans but some of them have not paid back and we still have their NYSC certificates with us . They have not come to claim these certificates for a number of years .

“ We give as much as between N 300,000 and N 400,000 depending on the business proposals . From the records , we have over 75 corps members that have defaulted and we are pursuing them . ”

Meanwhile , the NYSC medical corps in Borno State on Monday protested non-payment of allowances promised by the state government .

The Batch B NYSC members , who gathered at the Borno State Government House in Maiduguri , told journalists they had not been paid for four months .

One of them , Cornelius Azi , said, “Often times , we work extra hours due to shortage of medical personnel in the state health facilities . We have explored all alternative ways of dispute resolution but they haven’ t yielded results . We appeal to the government to honour its promise . ”

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health , Alhaji Mustapha Alau , who later addressed journalists , said the governor had already directed.