Festus Keyamo, the minister of state for Labour and Employment, has said that members of the House of Representatives have no powers to halt the Federal Government’s Public Works Programme.
According to him, only the president can halt the 774,000 jobs scheme which commenced on Tuesday, January 5, 2021.
“They were urging Mr. President, (look at the resolution, they cannot actually mandate) – to see whether they could halt commencement of the programme, but Mr. President had actually directed that we commence the programme. It is only Mr. President that can actually say that we should stop implementation of the programme, so on the directive of Mr. President, we have actually commenced the programme,” Keyamo said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
The House of Representatives had last month passed a resolution mandating the minister to stay action on the planned implementation of the scheme.
The reps had insisted that the programme will not be implemented until a comprehensive list of beneficiaries from the Nigerian directorate of employment is made available.
But despite the hesitation by both chambers of the National Assembly, the programme has commenced across the country.
Under the scheme, 774,000 people are expected to be recruited by the Federal Government, with the sum of N52 billion, earmarked in the 2020 budget.
1,000 persons are to be employed from each of the 774 Local Government Areas in the country, for the programme which is said to be a post-COVID-19 poverty alleviation initiative, approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
