Govt To Set Up State Selection Committees On Public Works Programme

The Federal Government is set to constitute special committees in each state of the federation to deliber­ate, select and recommend persons to be engaged for the Extended Special Pub­lic Works programme in the states.

The Committees, to be known as State Selection Committees, would select 1,000 persons from each of the Local Government Areas (LGA) in each state, as well as identify the projects to be executed in those areas.

Festus Keyamo, Minis­ter of State for Labour and Employment, disclosed this in Abuja while briefing the media on the programme approved by President Mu­hammadu Buhari for the selection of 1,000 persons each from all the 774 LGAs for temporary employment during the dry season.

A VICTIM!

According to the minis­ter, the President recently approved the extension of the Special Public Works programme to “all 36 states and the FCT from October – December 2020 as a means of mitigating the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.”

He further stated that the extended programme would also be expected to “provide modest stipends for itinerant workers to undertake roads’ rehabil­itation and social housing construction, urban and rural sanitation, health extension and other criti­cal services.

“Hence the directive of Mr. President for the Na­tional Directorate of Em­ployment (NDE) to collab­orate with other Ministries with rural components in their mandates.”

Keyamo recalled that Bu­hari had previously in Oc­tober 2019, approved a pilot scheme of the programme for implementation by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in five Local Government Areas in each of the eight pilot states of Adamawa, Borno, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Jigawa, Katsina and Kwara.