The Federal Government has inaugurated an Inter- ministerial Committee on Extended Special Public Work across the 774 local government areas of the federation.

The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo,  who disclosed this at the inauguration of the committee on Wednesday in Abuja, said the move was for effective planning and implementation for job creation.

Keyamo noted that President Muhammadu Buhari approved a pilot special public works programme in October 2019, for implementation by the National Directorate for Employment (NDE) in five local government areas in each of  the eight pilot states.

According to him, the programme is a Federal Government job creation drive, designed to mitigate lack of job opportunities in the rural areas.

“This is through short term engagement of 1000 unemployed persons per local government area for a period of three months, with N20,000 monthly allowance to the beneficiaries,” he said.

The minister described the programme as “a dry-off season transient job programme” targeting the rehabilitation and maintenance of public and social infrastructure.

He explained that the participants would be largely drawn from the pool of unskilled rural persons.

“Following the success of the pilot programme, which was carried out between February and April 2020, the Federal Government decided to  leverage on its gain.

“On Monday, April 6, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, in a Press Conference, conveyed the approval of Mr President, on the extension of the programme to all the 774 LGAs in the federation .

“This is from the initial five LGAs in eight states of the federation  ,” he added.

The minister noted that the approval by the President for the extension of the programme and the subsequent rise in its magnitude, necessitated the setting up of an inter-ministerial committee, for effective planning and proper implementation.

Keyamo, therefore, mandated the committee to collate the respective rural programmes in each ministry.

He said that the committee was also mandated to review the implementation of the pilot programme and make recommendations where necessary.

He, however, charged the committee to recommend appropriate monitoring and evaluation mechanism and develop an achievable implementation time line.

Keyamo expressed the confidence of the Federal Government in the ability of the committee to carry out the task beyond expectation.

The committee has its membership drawn from Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development, Works and Housing, Transportation, Labour and Employment.

The committee has the Director-General, National Directorate of Employment, Dr Nasir Ladan, as its chairman. (NAN)