26th February, 2017
The Federal Government says it will employ 350,000 unemployed graduates this year under its N-Power Volunteer Corps.
According to the Senior Special Assistant on Media & Publicity to the President, Office of the Vice President, Mr. Laolu Akande, President Buhari had requested appropriation of N157.75b in the 2017 budget estimates for the N-Power scheme.
“Out of the N-Power 2017 N157b 2017 budget, 350,000 unemployed graduates more would be hired and trained, alongside 50,000 non-graduates youths to be engaged as artisans and in other creative ventures,” Akande disclosed in his weekly update on the Social Investment Programmes, SIP, on Sunday.
He said under the N157.75b, a sum of N4.5b has been earmarked for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, STEM programme to support young Nigerians in building skills in those disciplines.
He noted that the SIP budget proposals for 2017 would be discussed this week at the National Assembly, and urged Nigerians to expect more this year, especially in the area of implementation as virtually all of the SIPs were now undergoing different stages of implementation.
“While we were able to engage 200,000 unemployed graduates last year, we will do 350,000 more this year,” he assured, adding that some of the teething problems were being solved.
He added that in the 2017 budget proposals now before the National Assembly, N75b had been allocated for the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, which would provide one meal a day to five million primary school pupils, saying that this would certainly be an improvement on how far the feeding programme had been implemented so far under the 2016 budget which had so far attained the feeding of about one million pupils.
The Spokesperson to the Acting President also stated that under the 2017 budget a sum of N112.2b had been allocated for the government’s enterprise and empowerment programme aimed at providing interest-free loans to up to 1.2million market men and women, traders, artisans, youths and farmers.
Under the GEEP, he explained that beneficiaries would receive between N10,000 and N100,000 loans with a one-time 5% administrative fee, saying that already, under the 2016 budget, over 20,000 Nigerians in about 14 states had been benefited from GEEP.
“Similarly, the Conditional Cash Transfer which has kicked off in nine states would be further expanded under the 2016 budget and will reach more states and much more Nigerians. The plan in 2016 budget targets one million poorest and vulnerable Nigerians. And in the 2017 budget an additional N54.98b has been allocated for the continuation of the N5000 monthly social safety net payments to the poorest Nigerians,” he said.
Akande further clarified that while President Muhammadu Buhari had further approved another N500b this year for all the social intervention programmes, adding that N100b out of it had been allocated for the Family Homes Fund as already announced by the Ministry of Finance.