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Chijioke Agwu, Abakaliki
The Federal Government has commenced the recruitment of 5,000 youths and women in Ebonyi state for special community services programme.
The scheme called Special Public Works (SPW) for rural areas is a pilot exercise of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) taking place in eight states across the country.
Addressing newsmen during the recruitment exercise in Abakaliki, yesterday, Director General of NDE, Dr. Nasiru Mohammed Ladan said the beneficiaries would be paid N20,000 monthly for the three months that the scheme would run.
He added that only youths between 18-30 years are qualified to benefit from the scheme. He disclosed that 1,000 beneficiaries have been selected from each of the five benefiting local government areas namely Ohaozara, Afikpo South, Ishielu, Ikwo and Izzi. Nasiru who was represented by the Ebonyi coordinator of the agency, Mr. Marcel Igboawude, added that the beneficiaries would be deployed for community services such as traffic control,clearing of markets, public infrastructures,health centres, maintenance of feeder roads and clearance of drainages, among others.
“It is indeed a national job creation programme. NDE was mandated to create this programme to assist in reducing unemployment among youths in Nigeria. The programme has the concept of community services in its implementation. At this stage, only eight states were selected nationwide for the pilot scheme. Luckily Ebonyi is selected in the South East.
