Vice President Arc Mohammed Namadi Sambo has emphasised that the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) is not a political programme but an empowerment programmed aimed at rapidly improving the socio-economic status of Nigerians.
Vice President Sambo stated this during a review meeting of the Community Services Women and Youth Employment (CSWYE) programme, with stakeholders from the 36 States of the Federation, which held at the State House, Abuja.
Arc Sambo stressed that the impact of the interventions of the SURE-P in the critical sectors of the Nigerian economy had been tremendous both in the infrastructure and social safety net programmes.
He noted that part of its infrastructure interventions was the ongoing refurbishing of over 3700km of roads across the country, with some already being commissioned and others nearing completion. He also added that the intervention of the SURE-P in the railways had facilitated the re-commissioning in December 2012 the Lagos-Kano railway after over 35 years of disrepair
Vice President Sambo said that the CSWYE was one of the critical components of the safety net programme of SURE-P, adding that the President Goodluck Jonathan administration holds women and youth in high esteem.
“This programme is for the young men and women of Nigeria, it’s about empowerment; it is about building capacity and creating opportunities for the gainful employment of young people in our various communities to harness their energies and channel them into projects that will enrich their communities. We need each and everyone’s cooperation to ensure that this project succeeds -without your full cooperation we cannot achieve that,” he said.
Vice President Sambo disclosed that to strengthen the CSWYE for proper coordination, efficiency, transparency, accountability and effectiveness, “the CSWYE Federal Project Implementation Unit has now been moved to the Federal Ministry of Labour, which also supervises the NDE to ensure better coordination of the project since the NDE is the technical implementation organ of the programme.”
He therefore charged the stakeholders to ensure transparency and accountability in the discharge of their duties.
Earlier the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu in his remarks enjoined all the stakeholders to put in their best to ensure the success of the programme. He noted that the programme had the capacity to reduce drastically the unemployment status of the country.
It will be recalled that the Federal Government set up the SURE-P in 2012 as a means of changing the socio-economic status of Nigeria through rapid interventions in critical sectors of the country’s economy.
