The House of Representatives on Tuesday, 21 July 2020 urged the President to direct the Minister of Labour to live up to his responsibility of supervising the National Directorate of Employment in relation to the Special Works Programme and urged the Ministry of Finance not to release funds if it would breach the Appropriation Act and National Directorate of Employment Act.

Hon. Toby Okechukwu (Enugu:PDP) in raising his motion argued that the implementation of the Special Works Programme is contrary to the Appropriation Act 2020 (as amended) which domiciled the programme with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE). He further noted that by section 2(a) of the National Directorate of Employment Act, LFN 2004, the Agency has the objective of designing and implementing programmes to combat mass unemployment. He added that the NDE ought to be the implementing agency as they have been in operation for 23 years and have developed cognate experience and cultivated the requisite staff for tasks such as these. To buttress his point, he stated that the NDE had earlier concluded a pilot study in 8 States for the implementation of the programme, hence the domiciliation.

In his submissions, he also stated that the Minister of Labour is the supervising Minister for the NDE as per sections 3 and 6 of the NDE Act and not the Minister of State, Labour. He pointed out that the position of Minister of State is not known to law and is not contemplated under section 147 of the Constitution. He concluded by arguing that the irregularity pertaining to the implementation of the Special Works Programme would affect accountability and jeopardise the National Assembly’s capacity to oversight and prevent wastage of scarce resources as the Minister of State, Labour, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN does not agree to parliamentary procedure.

Hon. Nkem Abonta (Abia:PDP) in supporting this motion stated that full attention should be given to every law and where there is a provision in our laws it should be complied with. He argued that the House should not condone the illegality, as it would amount to rascality if not done. He warned against the use of temporary arrangements as the consequences of such can be seen with the crisis in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), which is facing serious corruption and misappropriation allegations.

It is recalled that a meeting between the Committee on Labour, Employment and Productivity and the Minister of State, Labour, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN had held weeks prior on the subject of the Special Works Programme, which ended up in a heated exchange between both parties.

The Special Works Programme is meant to employ 1,000 Nigerians from each of the 774 Local Government Areas to carry out public works peculiar to their locale such as roads rehabilitation and social housing construction and urban and rural sanitation.