The Government of Rivers State has pulled out of the Special Public Works Programme of the Federal Government which will employ at least seven hundred and seventy-four thousand, 774, 000 unskilled Nigerians.
Erastus Awortu, the Rivers State nominee in a letter addressed to the Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo, and dated Tuesday, August 11, said the state government was pulling out because it has been hijacked by members of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Awortu, who is also the Special Adviser to Governor Nyesom Wike on NDDC, said that at the beginning, some guidelines were set on how the slots should be shared among the various interest groups.
He said that the various interest groups are 35 and have representatives in the committee but unfortunately, that is not being done by the Committee.
He said that the guidelines are not being followed.
“Accordingly, I want to say that since the slots are not defined as per the guidelines that the state is willing to allow the programme to be run fully as an APC empowerment programme for their members and cease to be part of it forthwith,” Awortu said.
