Reps urge FG to lift employment embargo in MDAs

The House of Representatives has urged the executive arm of the federal government to lift the embargo placed on recruitment into ministries, departments and agencies.

While calling on the government do so by directing the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to declare existing vacancies as well as direct the Federal Civil Service Commission to embark on recruitment exercise, the House urged the Organised Private Sector to fill existing vacancies in order to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country.

The call was fallout of a motion by Hon. Sani Bala, who said such move would ameliorate the effect of COVID-19 in Nigeria, recalling that the President Muhammadu Buhari during the Budget presentation in October 2019, announced an embargo on recruitment in Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), which he recently reiterated.

He said “by virtue of its role as the major employer of labour in the country, the action of the Federal Government not to sack or reduce salaries of its workers at the time has been applauded and has no doubt helped to reduce the worsening effects of the pandemic”, expressing concerns that in view of the projection made by the Minister of Labour in 2018 that Nigeria would record an unemployment rate of 33.5% by 2020, the pandemic had only worsened the situation.

The lawmaker argued that in addition to the Two million Nigerians previously projected by the World Bank to become impoverished, a further 5 million Nigerians have been said to be facing poverty as a result of COVID–19 Pandemic, a development he noted require drastic action by the government, with support of the private sector.

He also said that as fallout from the pandemic, the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics reported that the unemployment rate was put at about 27.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020, the highest on record since 2018 when unemployment rate was put at 23.1 percent in the third quarter of that year.

According to the lawmaker, the correlation between unemployment and poverty as well as the proposition that the latter, can be reduced by creation of productive employment or creating income opportunities for the poor.

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