774,000 Jobs: Federal government allocates 10% to politicians – Official

The federal government has allocated 10 per cent of the 774,000 job slots in the special public works programme to politicians, the spokesperson for the Kano State selection committee, Abubakar Muhammad-Janaral, has disclosed.

Mr Muhammad-Janaral disclosed this to PREMIUM TIMES on Monday in an interview. He said the state has distributed the forms for 4,400 of the state’s 44,000 job slots to politicians, in compliance with the directive.

He said the allocation was to address politicians’ interference in the selection processes.

“We have commenced the distribution of 10 per cent of 44,000 forms to politicians because we don’t want interference in the selection process.

“These politicians include the governor, his deputy, senators, members of House of Representatives, House of Assembly members, local government chairmen, councillors and supervisory councillors.

“They are not diverting the forms somewhere else as they are expected to distribute them to their people at the local level,” he said.

Mr Muhammad-Janaral said the formula is the same nationwide as the federal government has directed all state committees to allocate 10 per cent to politicians.

He said the Kano state committee has constituted local government committees which consist of traditional rulers, clerics and community-based organisations to monitor the selection process.

According to him, the committee will on Monday commence the distribution of the forms to interested unemployed applicants who will later undergo a screening to select the most qualified candidates.

The Special Public Works programme seeks to employ about 774, 000 youths for three months and they would be engaged in unskilled jobs such as sweeping streets, clearing drainage, controlling traffic and road construction among others.

The pilot programme was approved by President Muhammad Buhari to mitigate lack of job opportunities in the rural areas through a short-term engagement of 1000 unemployed persons per local government area for a period of three months.

The enrollees will be given N20,000.00 monthly over the three-month period.

Members of the National Assembly had earlier expressed concern over modalities adopted by the federal ministry of labour for selecting the beneficiaries.

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However, the minister of state for labour and employment, Festus Keyamo accused the federal lawmakers of attempting to hijack the process despite having 15 per cent of the job slots allocated to them.

Mr Keyamo had refused to explain to lawmakers the modalities he had adopted to carry out the recruitment process and why he was not carrying the National Directorate for Employment (NDE) along.

The minister explained that the Act that established the NDE gave his ministry powers to oversee the affairs and programs of the agency.

But the lawmakers later mandated the Federal Ministry of Finance and Budget Planning to release funds for the programme directly to the NDE as it forbade Mr Keyamo from coordinating the exercise.