THE Presidency has disclosed that the Federal Government has employed 200, 000 graduates to work as teachers and agricultural extension workers in the country.
Senior Special Assistant to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Media, Mr Laolu Akande, told newsmen on Friday in Abuja, that those employed would earn N30,000 monthly.
He disclosed that the selection process for the first batch of 200,000 Nigerians to be engaged in the N-Power process has now been completed and that their official engagement is now awaiting the completion of BVN verification so that they would be paid directly.
On how the selection was done, Akande said: “Presidency officials collaborated actively with the Ministries of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Health and other government agencies all through the process. There were no foreign consultants involved, nor is one needed.”
He further explained that to make up the selection of the first 200,000, there were three criteria thus: “40 per cent selected based on the number of applications per state, a special mark-up for the six states of the North-East and a discretionary addition for states with low numbers of applicants”.
Disclosing that the new employees would work in their states of residence, the media aide said their local governments would be in charge of their supervision.
According to Akande, “We have selected 200,000 graduates out of 500,000. This is the first batch.
“One hundred and fifty thousand will work as teachers while 50, 000 will work as extension workers. Their pay which is 30, 000 per month, will go directly into their account.”
Meanwhile, Akande explained that there are no online applications required for those set of Nigerians for whom the monthly N5,000 Conditional Cash Transfer of the Buhari Social Investment programmes were designed for.
He was responding to questions arising from what he described as some misleading reports in the media regarding the implementation of the N500B Social Investment Programmes of the Buhari administration.
The said media reports are based on a recent debate and resolution on a motion in the Senate, titled “The Need to Avoid the Mismanagement of the N500B Social Intervention Funds.”
According to Akande, “while we understand the need for an ongoing public discussion of this unprecedented budgetary allocation in favor of the Nigerian people especially the poorest and the most vulnerable, it is not correct to claim any form of mismanagement or marginalization whatsoever.”
He added that “ there has not been any disbursement from the allocated fund not to talk of any kind of mismanagement at all. While it is true that funds are being released for the social investment programmes, it is rather preposterous for now to say there is no evidence where the funds have gone to. As an administration noted for its transparency, we intend to fully keep Nigerians posted of all financial expenditure in line with extant laws of the country.”
The Presidential Spokesperson explained that “of the series of social investment programmes we have outlined, only the job creation scheme-N-Power requires an online registration from unemployed graduates and non-graduate youths.”
Continuing, he noted that the Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT, which would pay N5000 monthly to the most vulnerable and the poorest Nigerians-a total of one million in the first year-”no online registration of any kind is required,” Akande asserted.
Justifying the requirement for online registration for the hiring of 500,000 unemployed graduates, Akande said “it is important to explain, again, for the benefit of clarity, that the requirement for online application for the N-Power job scheme makes absolute sense considering that all together the Federal Government is planning to hire half a million unemployed Nigerian graduates.”
According to him, “we are all witnesses to the calamity that occurred in the past when a manual effort was made.
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