Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo, has denied the allegation that the federal government’s Public Works Scheme has failed.
Under the scheme, the government planned to engage 774,000 skilled and unskilled youths in executing public works projects across the country.
However, apparently not satisfied with the implementation of the job creation initiative, the House of Representatives mandated its Committee on Youths, Labour, Finance and Appropriations to “carry out a probe into the operation of the scheme.”
But Keyamo has described the report that the scheme was a failure as highly misleading.
In a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Tunde Moshood, the Minister of State said that “the National Directorate of Employment has implemented the public works programme successfully with about 90 per cent of the 774,000 participants engaged by the scheme across the nation successfully paid with over N40 billion so far.”
He said that Hon. Gudaji Kazaure was said to have raised a motion calling for the investigation of the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme.
However, the statement said that the scheme referred to by Hon. Kazaure was not the Special Public Works Scheme under the supervision of Keyamo but a totally different scheme called the P-Yes under the supervision of a different Ministry/Minister. Hence, the story is a misrepresentation of facts.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Extended Special Public Works programme has been successfully implemented by the National Directorate of Employment under the supervision of the Honourable Minister of State, Labour and Employment. The Honourable Minister is not directly or remotely in charge of the P-YES programme.
“The report of the alleged investigation into the Special Public Works Programme is therefore not just misleading but loaded with misinformation at the same time,” he said.
