The Federal Government has reiterated its commitment to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians and cushion the effect of COVID-19 by creating more jobs.
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Giving the assurance at the press briefing on the extended special public works programme approved by President Muhammadu Buhari for the selection of 1000 persons each from all the 774 Local Government Areas for temporary employment during the dry season, the Honourable Minister Of State, Labour & Employment, Festus Keyamo, stated that the pilot programme, earlier approved by President Muhammadu Buhari, was designed to mitigate lack of job opportunities in the rural areas through a short-term engagement of one thousand unemployed persons per Local Government Area for a period of three months.
The pilot scheme was approved to be implemented in five local government areas in eight states namely: Adamawa, Borno, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Jigawa, Katsina, and Kwara.
Saying that a total of 40,000 direct transient jobs were expected to be created in the eight pilot states, Keyamo stated that beneficiaries will be engaged in drainage digging and clearance, irrigation canals clearance, rural feeder, and road maintenance.
Others are maintenance of the great green wall nurseries and orchards in Borno, Jigawa, and Katsina States, traffic control, street cleaning, cleaning of public infrastructures such as health centres, schools and more.
Keyamo stated:
Having reviewed all the recommendations of this Inter-ministerial Committee, I believe that the selection of the beneficiaries and projects should be a local affair and not be done from a room in Abuja.
Consequently, in line with Section 16(1) of the N.D.E Act, I have decided to constitute special committees in each State of the Federation for the purpose of deliberating, selecting and recommending to my office the names of the 1,000 persons from each of the Local Government Areas in the States to be engaged for this programme. The Committees would also identify the projects to be executed in those L.G.As.
These special committees would be known as the State Selection Committees of the Special Public Works (SPW).
See video below:
Press Briefing by Min. of State for @LabourMinNG, Mr @fkeyamo on #SpecialPublicWorks Programme approved by Pres @MBuhari, by which 1000 persons would be selected from each of the 774 LGA’s in the country to work for 3 months during the dry season. https://t.co/io16Lv7nEA
— Government of Nigeria (@NigeriaGov) May 28, 2020
