The Special Public Works programme of the federal government is targeting 1, 000 youths across the 774 local government areas of the country who would be paid N20,000 monthly for three months to be engaged in drainage digging and clearance, irrigation, canal clearance, and rural feeder maintenance.
This was disclosed by the Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo while addressing journalists in Abuja yesterday.
According to him,the federal government had earmarked N42.6bn for the programme which would commence on October 1, 2020, adding that a website would be developed where information such as composition and contact of the selection committee, list of selected beneficiaries and chosen projects would be displayed for the public.
The Minister added that they would similarly focus on maintenance of great green wall nurseries and orchards in Borno, Katsina and Jigawa, traffic control, street cleaning, cleaning of public infrastructure like health centers and schools.
He noted that it is one of the biggest social intervention schemes to be carried out within a short period by any government in Nigeria.
“It is also unique because it is the very first direct employment scheme of any government that targets the very bottom of the economy.” he said.
He maintained further that the committee would not include political office holders in order to prevent it from being hijacked.
It would he recalled that Keyamo had threatened to leave office should any political office holder try to hijack the SPW from the reaching the most vulnerable and poor Nigerians.
He explained that the state selection committees would be instructed to allocate to political office holders like senators, Rep members, ministers and governors, a number in total not exceeding 10 percent of the total beneficiaries in that state.
The pilot programme earlier approved by the president was designed to mitigate lack of job opportunities in the rural areas through a short-term engagement of 1,000 unemployed youths in each local government area for a period of three months.
Keyamo said the president had also approved the use of selected banks to register and collate data of beneficiaries.
