The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has engaged 40,000 unemployed Nigerians in community development projects in order to tackle youth restiveness and improve on their standard of living.
Dr Muhammad Argungu, the Director-General of the agency, made this known in Keffi on Thursday at the end of a three-day capacity building workshop for 19 procurement officers of the organisation.
The theme of the workshop is “Enhancing Public Procurement Compliance: Techniques, Tools and Best Practices”.
According to him, this February, we have also attained major strides under the Presidency’s Special Public Works in rural areas being implemented by the NDE presently.
Argungu, represented by the agency’s Head of Procurement Department, Mr Aliyu Abubakar, explained that the pilot stage would create 40,000 new jobs by engaging 1,000 persons each in five Local government areas in eight benefitting states.
The states are Katsina, Jigawa, Edo, Ekiti, Ebonyi, Adamawa, Kwara and Borno.
“It is an off-farm initiative to engage young persons in community development projects such as road rehabilitation, drainage clearance, street cleaning and traffic control, among others,” he said.
He also disclosed that those engaged would be paid a monthly stipend of N20,000 each for three months.
Argungu, however, explained that the capacity building programme was conceived to equip procurement officers with techniques and tools to ensure best practices in the dynamic world of procurement.
“We have trained many of our officers for effective service delivery.
“As we have also trained many Nigerians in different skills including empowerment programmes; this is to enable the beneficiaries become self reliant,” he said.
Argungu urged the procurement officers to use the knowledge gained during the workshop for effective service delivery.
The director-General lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for giving adequate attention to the plights of Nigerians and called for its sustenance.
