ANAMBRA ELECTION: Police explains why some officers haven’t received allowances

Following reports that some men of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) deployed for Saturday’s governorship election in Anambra State, protested the non-payment of their feeding allowance, Force Spokesperson, Frank Mba has explained the glitch could be from ‘clerical issues or typographical mistakes’.

Speaking at the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) situation room in Abuja on Saturday, Mba said over 70 per cent of the officers deployed to the state have been paid.

“For the first time, we paid the money of personnel even before the commencement of the election,” he said.

“We deployed about 34,000 officers and as at noon on Friday, over 29,000 of them had received their money. I did not check today. And I’m sure a lot more would have received their money today.

“But we understand that there are some who have not received their money. This could be a result of clerical mistakes in forwarding their details; it could be typographical mistakes.

“It could be any other type of mistake in communication because the way these allowances are worked out is that the contributing commands are supposed to send these details from their respective squadrons if they are members of the police mobile forces or from their respective commands. Apart from that, it has to move from the office of the DPO to the CP’s office and then down to us,” Mba added.
Meanwhile, he noted that the force was already working on the issue to find out why the remaining numbers have not received their monies.

“The reassuring message here is that we’ve got the money. There is no complaint about the availability of the funds. We’ve got these allowances and it is warehoused in the police account and not with the CBN.

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“The inspector-general of police has already given directive this afternoon that the field commanders and the strategic managers on the ground should compile the names of persons who have not gotten their allowances and get all the necessary details correctly.

“The issue of welfare is very dear to us and this time around, the money being paid to them is an improved version to what was being paid before. Before, they don’t get paid a feeding allowance. They just pay you your allowance and it is assumed that your allowance would take care of your feeding and accommodation. But this time around, a separate feeding allowance is actually worked out and added.

“These monies are being paid into their account and not over the table so nobody can pilfer with anybody’s money,” Mba stated.

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