BEVERLY HILLS, July 22, (THEWILL) – The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Productivity has rejected resolutions of the National Assembly calling for the removal of the Minister of State, Festus Keyamo, from supervising recruitment of 774,000 Nigerians for the Special Public Works programme.
The ministry’s Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, Charles Akpan, in an interview with a Punch correspondent in Abuja, said “nothing has changed.”
THEWILL recalls that the Senate and the House of Representatives, had at their separate sessions on Tuesday, asked President Muhammadu Buhari to stop Keyamo from supervising the recruitment of 774,000 Nigerians.
This was because the lawmakers and Keyamo, last month, clashed when the minister was ordered out of the sitting of the Senate committee investigating the special works programme.
The National Assembly then said it had stopped the planned recruitment on the grounds that Keyamo had hijacked it from the National Directorate of Employment (NDE).
But despite the National Assembly’s directive, Keyamo, on July 14, said he had got the approval of the President to supervise the recruitment.
The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, subsequently met the President over the issue and the lawmakers made resolutions against Keyamo.
However, Akpan stated that the exercise would be supervised by Keyamo, under whose office the NDE operates.
“The special works programme is with the NDE, but our ministry is the supervising ministry for NDE and because of that, we monitor their activities and the ministry of labour was given the responsibility to handle that assignment, and it is under the supervision of the minister of state. So, whatever the directorate does, it would report to the minister of state; so nothing has changed.”
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