By Mohammed Mohammed
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo SAN, on Monday, gave a marching order to the newly inaugurated states’
selection committees on the employment of 774,000 youths for the public works programme, expected to take off in October.
At a virtual inauguration ceremony, the Minister said the 774,000 initiative is President Muhammadu Buhari’s programme for the weak and vulnerable.
He added: “Hence the programme must be treated as such. Permit me, at this junction to say that we are running out of time on the execution of this programme.
“This is because a lot still has to be done before the various works begin in October.”
According to him, the programme was graciously approved by President Buhari is aimed principally at recruiting 1000 itinerant, unskilled workers in all the 774 LGAs across the country.
He said: “I have used the word “principally” word advisedly because, as my subsequent directives to you would indicate, there may be few exceptions we have to make in respect of supervisors and few skilled labours with respect to specific requests we have received from other Ministries, Agencies and Parastatals (MDAs) and in some cases, private organisations that their works are somewhat related to public activity.
“These states’ selection 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.”
The Minister averred that haven accepted the recommendations from states’ selection committees, the government will ensure that the composition of the committees is multi-sectoral and local enough to balance all the competing interests in the different states.
He said: “Your selection, therefore was a result of a painstaking process we carried out to ensure that we make the exercise as credible as possible.
“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 LGA. 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.
“Depending on how successful the programme is or how buoyant the federal government’s purse is, this programme may either be extended or repeated every year.”
He said all the formal letters of appointments will be in our various states’ offices of the NDE this week for everyone to collect.
All other members in the committees would be contacted by the secretaries as to the time and place for their inaugural meetings and how they will proceed with the assignments, he said.
However, I direct that all meetings should be done in the various state offices of the NDE or some other neutral venues in order to avoid undue influences on the committees.
On remuneration, he said 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, adding, this is because President Buhari, has directed that everyone must be paid through their BVNs to eliminate fraud in the programme.
The Minister stated further: ” We are hereby releasing immediately, all the names and phone numbers of every member of the various Committees in the entire country for easy access by Nigerians in their various localities to make cases for their inclusions.
“Members of the committees, in turn, will also reach out to various sectors of their different states to recruit eligible Nigerians.
“The finer details of how these would be done will be communicated to the Committees through their various Chairmen and Secretaries.”
He stressed that if the committees adhere strictly to the guidelines given to them, they are bound to achieve the targets set by the President to reach out to 774,000 Nigerians who are largely indigent and itinerant workers.
Fortunately, you are saddled with this onerous task and I enjoin you to ensure it is a success, he added.