Minority Caucus in the House of Representatives has rejected a 30-job slot allotted to each member for their respective local government areas, in the recruitment exercise for the Federal Government’s Public Works Scheme.
The works programme being supervised by the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, is to employ 1,000 low-skilled persons from 774 local governments in the country.
Federal Government has allocated N52bn in the 2020 budget to execute the initiative.
The beneficiaries are to work for three months, between October and December, with each of them earning N20,000 monthly.
The Minority Leader of the House, Ndudi Elumelu, in a statement issued on Tuesday, described the allotment of 30 out of the 1000 slots per local government to each member of the House as;
Grossly unfair and unacceptable by Nigerians and the lawmakers who are the true representatives of the people.
The minority caucus of the House alleged that the sharing formula used is in favour of “certain interests in the ruling All Progressives Congress at the detriment and disadvantage of majority of Nigerians.”
Elumelu insisted that;
The 30 persons allotment to be supervised by a member in each of the Local Government Areas, cannot by any criteria, said to be a true representation of the people they are mandated to represent.
The Minority Leader stressed;
The 30 persons allotment per local government for lawmakers is grossly unfair, inadequate and unacceptable to Nigerians. As the representatives of the people, we are closer to them and they directly interact with us, irrespective of religion, class and political affiliations.
The caucus, therefore, demanded more transparency and consultation in the implementation of the 774,000 public works jobs.
