As part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s agenda to reduce unemployment rate in the country, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo (SAN), said that the Federal Government has agreed to pay the sum of twenty thousand naira, (20,000), to unemployed youths, for three months, to maintain public and social infrastructures in the country.

Disclosing this at a news conference, Keyamo opined: “The pilot programme earlier approved by Mr. President was designed to mitigate lack of job opportunities in the rural areas through a short-term engagement of 1,000 unemployed persons per local government area for a period of three months.

“It is a dry season/off-season transient job programme and was originally designed for the rehabilitation/maintenance of public and social infrastructure. Participants were to be paid an allowance of N20,000 monthly and were to be recruited largely from the pool of unskilled persons resident in those rural areas.

“Some have asked me why there’s  no registration portal for the 1000 jobs per LGA. My answer is, our real targets for these jobs are mostly unskilled rural workers who may not be literate enough & who can’t have access to any portal. The elites think everything is now by internet.

“Whilst it is inexpedient to ask largely illiterate, itinerant workers to go on the internet & register for jobs through a portal, we shall surely upload their full names & information AFTER RECRUITMENT on a website for all to see. The monitoring process would be very transparent”.