The Senate has asked the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo to step down from heading the recruitment process for the proposed 774, 000 temporal special work programme.

This decision was reached after a closed-door meeting was held to ascertain the next line of action about the proposed job scheme, after Keyamo announced that he had received a presidential nod to commence the implementation of the public works.

The decision was taken after a motion was moved by Opeyemi Bamidele, senator representing Ekiti central. The Senators, however, gave him the go-ahead to supervise the recruitment.

Keyamo is Nigeria’s Minister of State for Labour and Employment.

Bamidele stated that the National Directorate of Employment should carry out the implementation.

“The Senate hereby reiterates its support of the initiative of Mr President aimed at creating additional 774,000 temporary jobs for Nigerians.”

“That while recognising the supervisory role of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, the Senate notes that the need for it in its oversight and further legislative actions in respect of this programme the need to hold the NDE responsible both for the implementation of the programme and the surrendering of accounts for monies appropriated by the programme by the national assembly,” Bamidele said.

“The appropriation of N52bn for the 774,000 public works scheme is vested in the NDE and therefore must be implemented accordingly while acknowledging the supervisory role of Ministry of Labour, Employment and Productivity. The ministry has a supervisory role and the National Assembly has the oversight function,” the Senate held.

It can be recalled that Keyamo had engaged in a verbal tussle with the senators when he was summoned to defend the programme.

As it happened that after a heated argument, Keyamo accused the lawmakers of trying to seize the programme by getting undue slots in the recruitment process.

In their defence, the lawmakers accused Keyamo of hijacking the programme from the National Directorate of Employment after getting N52bn approval from the legislator to carry out the public works programme.