Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has secured approval from President Muhammadu Buhari to go ahead with the plan to recruit 774,000 Nigerians under the Special Public Works Programme (SPW).
Keyamo confirmed this to The Nation on Wednesday in Abuja, saying,
I have the instructions of my boss, Mr. President, to proceed unhindered.
This comes after the National Assembly ordered Keyamo to put a halt on the programme.
The lawmakers claimed Keyamo did not seek their inputs, before putting together members of the 20-man States selection committees inaugurated in June.
They also accused him of trying to hijack the scheme from the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), the implementing agency of the project.
However, Keyamo, who appeared before members of the National Assembly Joint Committee on Labour on June 30, accused the lawmakers of seeking to control the implementation of the programme.
Read Also: 774,000 Jobs: Senate, Keyamo In Rowdy Session Over Recruitment Process
Keyamo, with the support of the President, has now gone ahead to inaugurate special committees in all the states of the Federation and the FCT for the selection of applicants for the programme.
In a virtual inauguration conference jointly addressed by the Director-General, National Directorate of Employment, Dr Nasir Ladan Argungu on Tuesday in Abuja.
The Minister disclosed that an Inter-Ministerial Committee drawn from eight Ministries and headed by the NDE recommended the setting up of States’ Selection Committees to identify and recruit those to be engaged under the Programme.
Keyamo stated;
These Committees would also be saddled with the responsibility of identifying the public works to be executed in each of the LGAs in all the States. This would be in addition to projects already identified by several Federal Ministries, Agencies and Parastatals in different localities across the country.
Having accepted the recommendations, we also ensured that the composition of the Committees is multi-sectoral and local enough to balance all the competing interests in different States. Your selection, therefore, was a result of a painstaking process we carried out to ensure that we make the exercise as credible as possible.
He explained;
The 1,000 persons you will recruit per LGA would be engaged by the Federal Government between October and December this year to carry out public works that are peculiar to each Local Government Area. They would be paid a total of N60,000 each (that is N20,000 per month). They would be engaged in roads rehabilitation and social housing construction, urban and rural sanitation, health extension and other critical services
The minister stated that the programme could be extended or repeated every year, saying;
After the selection of those to be engaged, they still have to be captured by some selected banks we are in talks with, their account opened, and their BVNs obtained. This is because Mr President has directed that everyone must be paid through their BVNs to eliminate fraud in the programme.
He stressed;
As a result, I direct that all the States’ Selection Committees have just three weeks to complete the selection process and return the names of those selected to us for further processing with the banks.
Keyamo emphasized;
My belief is that if the Committees adhere strictly to the Guidelines given to them, they are bound to achieve the targets set by Mr President to reach out to 774,000 Nigerians who are largely indigent and itinerant workers.
The SPW is a post-COVID-19 poverty alleviation programme, approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
