NYSC launches biometric registration to monitor Corps Members

Director General of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Brigadier General Johnson Olawumi, on Thursday said six staff of the scheme were currently facing the wrath of the law for conniving with corps members to abstain fraudulently from the service. This is even, as the scheme launched biometric technology for the conduct of monthly clearance and monitor corps members nationwide.

Olawumi, while speaking at the formal demonstration of the deployment of the biometric technology for the conduct of monthly clearance of corps members in Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, said the exercise would cover all serving corps members starting from 2014 Batch ‘C’.

The NYSC boss further explained that the biometric clearance would kick off in Lagos State and the FCT this month, while by next year, it would be extended to other states of the federation.

Olawumi, allying the fear of the public and corps members on the exercise, assured that “it is going to be user friendly, not to impose additional sufferings on corps members.”

He added that those staffs might be dismissed finally from the service to serve as deterrent to others. In his remarks, the Director of Corps Welfare and Inspectorate, Mr. Michael Ahile, noted that with the increasing number of corps members annually, “the task of effectively monitoring corps members’ nation-wide has remained a major challenge to the scheme.” Stressing the determination of the NYSC to build a dynamic scheme, he said; “with the use of biometric to monitor corps members.

The NYSC would be able to effectively check cases of absenteeism, submission of monthly clearance letters by proxy, signing of Community Development Service, CDS, attendance register by proxy and other forms of indiscipline among corps members.”

The representative of the Sidmach Technologies, Mr Hassan Alao, disclosed that with the technology, those who registered on-line by proxy would definitely be exposed, urging corps members to note the finger used for registration during orientation camp exercise.

According to him, at the end of the clearance, it will be loaded to the ‘cloud’ for the DG, finance and other departments in the NYSC headquarter in Abuja to see the number of corps members cleared from each local government in the country for payment.

National Mirror