The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has said that members of the House of Representatives have no powers to halt the Federal Government’s Public Works Programme.
According to him, only the president can halt the 774,000 jobs scheme which commenced on Tuesday.
“They were urging Mr President, (look at the resolution, they cannot actually mandate) – to see whether they could halt commencement of the programme, but Mr President had actually directed that we commence the programme. It is only Mr President that can actually say that we should stop implementation of the programme, so on the directive of Mr President, we have actually commenced the programme,” Keyamo said on a monitored Channels Television programme.
The House of Representatives had last month passed a resolution mandating the minister to stay action on the planned implementation of the scheme.
The reps had insisted that the programme will not be implemented until a comprehensive list of beneficiaries from the Nigerian directorate of employment is made available.
But despite the hesitation by both chambers of the National Assembly, the programme has commenced across the country.
Under the scheme, 774,000 people are expected to be recruited by the Federal Government, with the sum of N52 billion, earmarked in the 2020 budget.
1,000 persons are to be employed from each of the 774 Local Government Areas in the country, for the programme which is said to be a post-COVID-19 poverty alleviation initiative, approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
No hike in electricity tariff
Meanwhile,the Minister also explained that has been no increment in electricity tariff. According to him, what was done was to adjust certain bands and to ensure that certain persons who are supposed to be on some bands, are not wrongly put on some other bands.
“What we agreed to do was to freeze certain bands (we have band A,B,C,D). In the interim, what we did was to adjust certain bands and to ensure that certain persons who were supposed to be on some bands, are not wrongly put on some other bands but there has not been any increase in tariffs,” he said.
This is contrary to a statement by NERC issued earlier on Tuesday admitting that the rates for service bands A, B, C, D, and E have been “adjusted” by N2 to N4 per kilowatt-hour (KWH).
According to the agency, the adjustment is in compliance with the provisions of the Electric Power Sector Reform (ESPR) Act and Nigeria’s tariff methodology for biannual minor review.
It also noted that it was aimed at reflecting the partial impact of inflation and movement in forex.
But Keyamo who is the chairman of the sub-committee mandated to go round the country to interact with stakeholders and the discos to find a cost-effective tariff that Nigerians can pay, maintained that there has been no increase in tariff.
“We are still in the process of carrying out our assignment, we have not finished and when I saw the story this morning, I consulted members of the team and they said it is not correct. There has been no increase in tariff,” he said on Tuesday.