Senate advocates increased feeding allowance for NYSC members

Senate Committee on Sports and Youth Development has advocated an increase in the allocation of daily feeding allowance of National Youth Service Corps, NYSC members from its current N600 per person to N1, 000.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Obinna Ogba (PDP Ebonyi Central) made the appeal ywhile presenting a report of the 2022 budget to the Committee on Appropriations.

The Senate Committee on Interior had on October 27, 2021, increased the daily feeding allowance of the Nigerian Correctional Service, NCS from its current N450 per person to a minimum of N1, 000.

Speaking on the need for increase, Senator Ogba said it was appalling that the prisoners’ ration was going to be higher than the NYSC members, who are serving the nation.

“It’s appalling that prisoners who have committed crimes are going to enjoy more than the youth corps members who are serving the country.

“The prisoners should not be taking more than the youth corps members, because the feeding allowance for corpers is N600 per person a day while that of a prisoner is to be put at N1, 000 per day.

“You and I will agree that this is not the right thing. I’m only appealing to the executive and the legislature to do something about the youth corps members by increasing their daily feeding allowance from 600 to N1, 000 and the quality of their uniform,” he stressed.

The lawmaker also lamented that the budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Youths and Sports which is put at N5 billion for capital expenditure in the 2022 budget was grossly inadequate.

“Something needs to be done, because the budget cannot take both the ministry and the youths anywhere,” he declared.

Speaking in the same vein, a member of the committee, Senator Smart Adeyemi (APC Kogi West), also said increasing the feeding cost of NYSC members has become necessary for them to be patriotic.

He said: “If the corps members are not well fed, it will be difficult for them to be patriotic.”

It would be recalled that the Director-General of the NYSC, Brigadier General Shuaibu Ibrahim had called for increased feeding allowance for corps members in the scheme’s 2022 budget.

General Ibrahim, who made the appeal while defending the NYSC budget recently, said corps members were served a meal worth N217 per day.