President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the take-off of the Special Public Works Programme nationwide on Tuesday, January 5th, 2021.
Minister of State for Employment and Labour, Festus Keyamo, made the disclosure in a tweet Sunday night.
He also disclosed that all state structures of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) are “already in top gear for the take-off ceremonies.”
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the take off of the Special Public Works Programme (engaging 774,000 unemployed itinerant Nigerians) to begin nationwide on Tuesday, January 5th, 2021.
“The scheme is engaging 1,000 artisans and unskilled workers from each of the 774 local government areas in the country. The target is to create 774,000 jobs for three months”.
“The commencement date has been changed several times. It was originally billed to kick-off October 1, 2020. It was later rescheduled to commence November 1, 2020 but it didn’t go ahead as planned. There was another failed take-off in December 2020”.
There was no communication on a new take-off date until Keyamo’s announcement on Sunday.
On December 15, 2020, the House of Representatives again called for the immediate suspension of the controversial scheme.
The lawmakers asked the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning not to fund the scheme.
The National Assembly and the Federal Ministry of Labour, Employment and Productivity had been at loggerheads over the recruitment of the workers for the scheme.
In July, both chambers of the National Assembly suspended the programme after alleging that they had been sidelined.
They had also sought to be actively involved in the recruitment of the beneficiaries, a move which Keyamo had opposed.