The Senate Committee on Sports and Youth Development has advocated an increment in the daily feeding allowance of the National Youth Service Corps members from its current N600 per person to N1,000.
Chairman of the committee Obinna Ogba, made the appeal on Tuesday while presenting his panel report on the 2022 budget to the Appropriations Committee.
The Senate Committee on Interior had last month increased the daily feeding allowance of the Nigerian Correctional Service’s inmates from N450 per person to a minimum of N1,000 per day.
Ogba said it was appalling that the prisoners’ ration was higher than the NYSC members, who are serving the nation.
He said, “It’s appalling that prisoners who have committed crimes are enjoying 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 corps members is N600 per person a day while that of a prisoner is N1000.
“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 N1000 and the quality of their uniform.”
The lawmaker also lamented that the budgetary allocation to the ministry of Youths and Sports was grossly inadequate.
“Something needs to be done because the budget cannot take both the ministry and the youths anywhere,” he said.
Senator Smart Adeyemi also said increasing the feeding cost of NYSC members has become necessary for them to be patriotic.
“If the corps members are not well fed, it will be difficult for them to be patriotic,” he said.
