The Minority Caucus in the House of Representatives has rejected the 30-job slot allotted to each member of the House for their respective local government areas, in the recruitment exercise for the Federal Government’s Public Works Scheme.
Ndudi Elumelu, Minority Leader of the House, said in a statement on Tuesday that the 30 out of the 1000 slots allotted per local government to each member of the House was “grossly unfair and unacceptable by Nigerians and the lawmakers who are the true representatives of the people.”
The statement was titled ‘774, 000 Jobs: Reps Minority Caucus Rejects 30 Slots for Members.’
According to Elumelu, the caucus was demanding more transparency and review of the criteria being used for the allotment
The scheme has been a contentious issue from the beginning, as the entire National Assembly had clashed with Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Labour, Employment and Productivity, over the modalities of distributing the chances available on the progamme.
The amount of N52bn is allocated for the scheme in Nigeria’s 2020 budget, but eight months into the year, the modalities of the programme are yet to be agreed upon, due to political wrangling. The scheme is designed to employ 1,000 artisans from each of the 774 Local Government Areas in the country.
Earlier, political office holders were allotted 15 percent of the slots in the programme.
Participants in the scheme will work for three months, between October and December, at a monthly stipend of N20,000 per person.
Dr. Innocent Barikor, Chairman of the Extended Special Public Work Selection Committee in Rivers State, , was quoted to have said, “The directive given to us is that every state governor has 40 slots of the job in each LGA; serving senators have 30 each; members of House of Representative have 25 slots; a minister has 30 slots in every LGA in his state of origin.”
The minority caucus of the House, however, alleged that the formula used is in favor of “certain interests in the ruling All Progressives Congress at the detriment and disadvantage of the majority of Nigerians.”
Elumelu insisted that “the 30 person allotment to be supervised by a member in each of the Local Government Areas, cannot by any criteria, said to be a true representation of the people they are mandated to represent.”
Elumelu pointed out that the 774,000 jobs were meant for the people and that the people looked up to the lawmakers as major channels through which they are reached for social-economic empowerment.
“The 30 person allotment per local government for lawmakers is grossly unfair, inadequate, and unacceptable to Nigerians. As the representatives of the people, we are closer to them and they directly interact with us, irrespective of religion, class, and political affiliations.
“All Nigerians living in our constituencies are our constituents, irrespective of political leanings. We have a responsibility to protect their interests at all times. As such lawmakers ought to have been carried along on the allotment.
“Moreover, the questions are, what criteria are being used in the job allotments? Given the 30 persons out of the 1000 per local government area allotted to federal lawmakers, what happens to the remaining 970? What answers do we give Nigerians? How do we ensure that the program benefited Nigerians and not enmeshed in allegations of sharp practices as witnessed in the COVID-19 palliative distribution?”
The caucus, therefore, demanded more transparency and consultation in the implementation of the 774,000 public works jobs.
He asked President Muhammadu Buhari to “immediately order a review of the implementation process to ensure that the targeted citizens benefited from the program as intended.”
