In a move aimed at actualising the planned social security for the
teeming unemployed Nigerians, the federal government monday said plans
were underway to register all unemployed citizens across the country.
The
decision came amid the slow pace by the All Progressives Congress
(APC)-led government to fulfill its campaign promise of paying
unemployed graduates N5,000 as social security stipend.
The
acting Director General of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE),
Mr. Olakunle Obayan, stated this during the official handover by the
former Director General, Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed.
Speaking on
the current template to address the challenges of unemployment in the
country, Obayan said: “Actually some of them (projects) are brand new
and they are coming up in 2016. We are going to tenaciously pursue the
employment generation activities of NDE, and we are going to expand
their scope.
“This new schemes when they come on board, are
schemes such that they are going to take care of the social security
issues and something that will need majority of the people to get
something doing.”
He stated that: Besides, we have programmes
that are for the graduates of the tertiary institutions as well. We have
so many programmes that have been designed such that it will improve
our service delivery system.
“We are going to pursue that
vigorously, we are going to start a national registration of the
unemployed. That we are going to take on fully so that we will have a
great idea of how many of them are around.” Obayan stated: “We have some
but we are going to improve on the information we have in our data base
and we are going to make sure that it is something we can access from
our different locations, even if you are down in the hinterland, you
should be able to do so.
“We have all these things planned in
place, all these will drive as soon as I settle down which is this week
and you will start seeing these activities around NDE.”
Regarding
funding of such programmes, the acting DG stated that “the issue of
funding is something that is hindering the NDE to even do more in
meeting its mandate. How are you going to go about funding so that all
visions won’t waste?
“Being in government, so many times, you
have to be conscious about what goes on in your funds from here to
there. Right now, we are going into PPPs so that we can extend the
mileage of our funds and how many people we can reach and several
collaborations as well that we are getting into.
“Some of them
with the members of the national assembly, world bank, we will want to
partner with DFID, ILO and so many development partners, but asides
that, we try to do more in 2016 because government does not have that
kind of money right now, and actually employment generation, and job
creation should not be solely for government; private sectors generally,
they should come on board.
“This is one of the reasons we are
planning a stakeholders’ forum, where the private sector will actually
know its role. It is not strictly for government, these people we train,
are not only for government, they are for all.” While presenting his
handover notes, Mohammed said he would leave behind an efficient
workforce that had been groomed in tackling the nation’s employment
crisis.
He explained that NDE has diversified into various areas
in the training and mentoring of Nigerians not just for acquiring jobs
but also for creating employment opportunities for other Nigerians.
The former DG retires from service after 26 years in public service
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