By Idris Ibrahim
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has denied allegations that House of Representatives Committee on Public Works Scheme is currently probing a youth empowerment scheme that he supervised months ago.
Mr. Keyamo rebutted a report published on social media titled; 774 Jobs: Reps Probe FG’s Public Works Scheme’s Failure.
The minister described the allegations as “misleading and misinformed” investigation.
The federal government had in January flagged off the 774,000 jobs, across the country with each participant expected to receive N20,000 for three months which was supervised by Mr. Keyamo.
In a statement Friday, Tunde Moshood, Special Adviser, Media and Communications to the minister disclosed that the house committee is probing an entirely scheme.
“In the said report, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Youths, Labour, Finance and Appropriations was to have been mandated to “carry out a probe into the non-implementation of the scheme.”
“After a motion moved by Honourable Gudaji Kazaure on the ‘Call to investigate the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme’. However, the Scheme referred to by Hon. Kazaure is not the Special Public Works Scheme under the supervision of Festus Keyamo, SAN, 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,” the minister said.
The statement alleged that the law makers are probing P-YES programme which is not directly under the ministry of Labour.
However, the Minister’s aide further revealed that the public works schemes under Mr. Keyamo has been implemented successfully with about 90% of the 774,000 ESPW participants engaged by the scheme across the nation successfully paid with over N40 billion so far.
