FG orders opening of job portal June 17

Acting President Professor Yemi Osinbajo has directed that the online portal of the government’s job initiative, N-Power, be re-opened on June 17, to allow more unemployed Nigerians apply.

The Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who made this disclosure in Abuja, advised youth to apply for the Federal Government’s National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP), adding that the government would this year scale up the N-SIP to accommodate more beneficiaries.

N-SIP is a Federal Government’s programme aimed at reducing poverty and improving livelihoods of vulnerable groups such as, the unemployed youths, women and children.

The government also revealed that the programme has so far empowered over 1.6 million Nigerians through its four components, namely; N-Power, National Home- Grown School Feeding Programme, Conditional Cash Transfer, and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme.

“For example, in N-Power Scheme that 200,000 beneficiaries have been employed, we are supposed to increase it to 500,000 beneficiaries in 2017,” the minister said.

She said the Acting President had directed that the online portal should be reopened on June 17 to give Nigerian youth opportunity to apply for the next batch of the programme.

“There is opportunity in the N-Power Programme for employment. There is opportunity in the GEEP for you to get finances to be able to start businesses. Please, this is real, it is working, join the process and be a beneficiary,’’ she said.

She explained that the process was delayed initially because of the effort to eliminate fraudulent applicants and to make the process transparent.

She added that the programme had not been able to attain its set target because of the delay in starting its actual implementation.

“The deployment, release of funds didn’t start till October 2016; and it is so because we want to make sure that the programme is planned properly.

“We want to make sure that each beneficiary has bank account linked to BVN; we are targeting the right people, not just people nominated by big people.

“That took a lot of time, but we thank God that the programme is going on well and it is now easier to upscale it,’’ she pointed out.

The programme, Mrs. Ahmed said was showcased at the second year commemorative event of the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari on May 29, with the theme: “A Smile for Every Nigerian,’’ as it recorded testimonies of beneficiaries across the country.

“We are thanking God for witnessing the confirmation that the work we have done is actually yielding results.

“Prior to now, we are getting a report on paper that shows the number of beneficiaries but we have seen and heard the testimonies of the beneficiaries at the event,’’ she said.

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