The minority caucus of the house
of representatives says 30 slots allocated to its members out of the 1,000 jobs
for each local government area in the country is inadequate.
The federal government had kicked
off the special public works programme for the recruitment of 774,000 Nigerians
as part of fiscal stimulus measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The programme, which is
coordinated by the ministry of labour and employment, was approved by President
Muhammadu Buhari.
A total of 1,000 Nigerians from
each of the 774 local government areas will be engaged in the programme
supervised by constituted state committees.
The beneficiaries will earn
N20,000 monthly, and N52 billion has been voted for the programme in the 2020
budget.
A number of slots have been given
to governors, senators and members of the house of representatives.
In a statement on Tuesday, Ndudi
Elumelu, minority leader of the house of representatives, said 30 slots have
been offered to members of the minority caucus — an allocation he described as
inadequate.
Elumelu, a member of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) representing Aniocha North/Aniocha South and Oshimili
North and South federal constituency of Delta state, alleged that the lawmakers
were not involved in the process.
He said the allocation is not a
true representation of the people in their various constituencies, and that
Buhari needs to review the recruitment process.
“The 30 persons allotment to be
supervised by a member in each of the local government areas cannot, by any
criteria, be said to be a true representation of the people they are mandated
to represent,” he said.
“It 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 leaning. 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 is 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 programme benefit Nigerians and not enmeshed in allegations of sharp
practices as witnessed in the COVID-19 palliative distribution?”
In reaction to Elumelu’s remarks,
Yekini Nabena, deputy spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said
the slots were well distributed.
He said PDP members are making
unnecessary accusations and that the federal government has the exercise under
control.
“Traditional rulers, religious
leaders and local government chairmen across the country got the job slots. Is
Elumelu saying they are all APC card carrying members?” he said.
“I will give you a personal
example: my local government chairman in Sagbama council of Bayelsa state is a
PDP member. The problem with these PDP members is that they have all been
infected with the PDP virus. They should stop crying wolf where there is none.
The truth is that we got it right on this particular exercise supervised by
Keyamo.”
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com