Our decision to move 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2030 irreversible, says FG

By AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja

Federal Government has said that its decision to move 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by the year 2030 remain unchanged and would become a reality.

It also said modalities have been put in place to achieve the feat, especially with the new National Development Plan 2021 to 2025.

The Permanent secretary, ministry of Labour and Employment, Kachallom Daju dropped the hint at a media parley with newsmen during the weekend.

She said the process is multi-sectoral and involves more than just the Ministry, adding that the various sectors will work together to guarantee that the goal is met.

The permanent secretary said, “And it’s not just federal government. The private sector is supposed to play a huge role because we cannot all be dependent on government.

“The private sector has its own role to play. So we will work together and for the Ministry of Labour, we have different agencies and departments that have to do with employment, skills acquisition, as you all know and recently, the Labour Market Information System, which we’re bringing out for the citizens to know, is to ensure that data is collected.

“Alongside that, we’re actually going to improve on job matching. We have the National Electronic Labour Exchange (NELEX) which has been on but now we are going to improve it. It is where you match jobseekers with the job.

“It has been going on but apparently many Nigerians are not aware of it. So, the ministry is upgrading that and ensuring that hopefully, I do not want to give a date but I know that we are improving more and actually constructing more job centers across the nation.”

She maintained that there are plans to enhance the number of job centers in the nation in order to serve all 774 local government areas.

“We want more job centres created in the 744 Local Government Areas and the states, that is how the government equally want to help.

“The National Directorate of Employment was actually brought to ensure that the informal sector is well taken care of and that is the problem for the government.

“A large per cent of people are in the informal sector are not insured but with the National Health Insurance Act which was just passed, the insurance has to go to the informal sector too now and it all part of what the government is doing.

“It will equally help the artisans who have not been able to take care of themselves or their families when they are ill to go to the hospitals and being taken care of.

“So let me go back to the National Directorate of employment. They have different schemes that cut across board where employment is reduced.

“Not only for the youth, you have schemes that are for women, only solely for women, you have agric skills, you have mature people skills, and they are trained in various different vocational skills all across the country. You have bead making, mechanic training and so many different things, you actually have a rural infrastructure, where roads are built an hospitals are maintained, and many things like that.

“Yes, I would say government policy to reduce poverty by 2030 is real, to cut down youth unemployment is real.” She added.

The permanent secretary urged journalists to always make sure that their reports were supported by data and pledged to work in unison with the media to promote the ministry’s initiatives.