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 the ministry of finance to pay the corps members.

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