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NIMC seeks payment of diaspora partner debts

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) at the weekend urged its diaspora Front End Partners (FEPs) to pay the debts owed it just as it has started paying the debts it owed its local FEPs.

Speaking on side of the management retreat organized by the Commission at Eko Hotel and Suites, NIMC Director-General, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, said the Commission has written to the debtor FEPs to pay up, warning that they risked being disengaged from working with the NIMC.

She said: “For the FEPs in the diaspora that owe us money, I appeal to them to pay us debts that are outstanding. It is very important. Some of these FEPs have local FEPs in Nigeria. You cannot come with one mouth and say that we owe you money, while in the diaspora, you are owing us money and you have not remitted your funds. We are appealing to them. Due process has to be followed and the necessary action will be taken. We have written to them, we have communicated to them severally and if we do not get the desired response and your commitment to paying us, then we will definitely ensure that we disqualify you and disengage your services. We will do that according to all the agreement that have been put in place.”

Speaking on the rationale for the retreat, she said the engagement session was with the FEPs and the theme for the forum spoke to strategy and innovation plans that NIMC is putting in place to ensure the success of NIMC as a commission.

“This session connects to one of the first agenda point, which speaks to increase in enrolment nationwide and the FEPs are very crucial and they play a pivotal role in ensuring the success of our enrolment plan nationwide.

“We are here today to deliberate with FEPs to see how they can go to the nooks and crannies , to ensure that people that are disenfranchise are able to have a NIN, so they can be entitled to the various government services that are available and other benefits that should be in place. That is one of the things we have started working with the FEPs on.

“We have heard and listened to the public outcry on some cases of extortion, through the offices of the FEPs and that is one of the reasons why, last year, we had suspended them, to ensure that we go through the whole process again with them, make sure that whatever loopholes, which is basically the means to which they are basically extorting people, that we were able to close those loopholes and that is why, we have now gone through all that process successfully, to ensure that extortion is no longer possible and ensure that we take them through the LAF (License Assurance Framework), which we have gone through today, just to make sure that they all have a clear understanding of what that framework entails. We have also communicated to them in writing about LAF and the new process and to ensure that their system comply with this framework process in place, to eliminate any issue like fraud or extortion across board. We want to ensure that the citizens are happy with our services; we want to ensure that our services to the citizens are 100 per cent seamless and problem free,” she explained.

According to her, one of the reasons the FEPs were assembled was to discuss about payment. Shedding more light on this, she said: “We have started to review the process of payment for them and one of the things that we have factored in, was for us to check in the back end to validate and verify that the total number of NINs, they claimed that they have generated is what we are actually going to pay them for, which is the normal process. A lot of them expect us not to carry out due diligence, but we have ensured that we must carry out our due diligence, as a responsible Federal Government agency, so it has to be done.

“Regarding payment, we have cleared some, and we have started to disburse those payment. For those that have been cleared, we have started to onboard them, using the LAF, to ensure that they can now come back and the citizens can regard and their trust in them when it comes to enrolment.

“We are also trying to look at how we can support the FEPs to be able to achieve our own objectives, which is increasing our enrolment drive and establishing a fact that all citizens must have a NIN. We will do all we can to support them, but we also want them to understand that they need to be able to comply with the Federal Government processes, laws and ensure that the people’s data they are collecting is done in a seamless manner and that their data is very secure because we have a robust infrastructure in the back end and we are upgrading to the latest version at the moment. 

“Last year, I did tell the FEPs, that we will ensure that before the end of the first quarter, we will pay them, if there is any hitches, in terms of a little bit of slight delay in payment, we will definitely inform the public, just before it happens.

“The FEPs that have high infraction, we will not be bringing them back to NIMC, it shows that they don’t have the ethics and values and this is another reason why the LAF was put in place, to ensure that the FEPs comply with the federal government values, to ensure that all citizens in Nigeria have a free NIN. One of the things we have done and the processes that we have put in place is to ensure that citizens can go to any of the FEPs and put their trust in them, and know that they will not be extorted,” the Director-General said.