FG Targets Recruitment of 18,000 for Public Works in Cross River

By Bassey Inyang

At least 18,000 people will be employed in Cross River State under the federal government public works employment scheme aimed at employing 774,000 workers across the country.

Chairman of Cross River State Selection Committee of the Federal Ministry of Labour, Employments and Productivity, Maria Ukpayang, who made the disclosure, said no fewer than 1,000 people would be engaged for the public works scheme in each of the 18 local government areas of the state.

Ukpayang who stated this at the weekend while inaugurating a 20-member selection committee for the state in Calabar, tasked members of the committee to be transparent in discharging the responsibility assigned to them.

She urged the members of the committee to see their duties as a national assignment given to them by the federal government.

The head of the committee said the public works programme which was actually inaugurated on June 29, 2020, by the Minister of State Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo, has mandated the committees at state level to collate beneficiaries in poor households from each of the local government areas.

She said members of the National Committee from Cross River State that were inaugurated by the minister in Abuja were the state Vice Chairman, Mr. Martin Bisong, and the state Secretary, Gabriel Udam.

Ukpayang said the scheme is a project of the federal government targeted at the grassroots level, especially the poor households.

She said employment under the public works programme is for Nigerians, and has nothing to do with partisan politics.

Also speaking, Bisong and Udam, who spoke on the same note on the membership of the committee in the state, said they represent different interest groups, such as the traditional institution, the youths, market woman, the Muslim community, and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).