By Wole Adedeji, Ilorin
A total number of 1,025 youths are to be deployed under the Labour Intensive Public Workfare, LIPW,
to the 16 local government areas of Kwara State for public works activities.
The scheme is under the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus, NG-CARES, intervention programme for which the participating youths had been selected.
They were drawn from the register of Poor and Vulnerable Households, PVHs,
for the LPW, earlier approved by the governor, Mallam AbdukRahman AbdulRazaq.
The programme is scheduled to commence this Tuesday across all the 16 local government areas of the state.
Each of the 1,025 beneficiaries would receive the sum of N10,000 as monthly stipend, according to a statement by the state Ministry of Communications. Participants, the statement said, shall be expected to clean public institutions and utilities in their immediate communities for a maximum period of four hours per day.
This however excludes weekends and public holidays.
Addressing the Community Development Officers, CDOs from the 16 local government councils at a meeting in Ilorin, the state Commissioner for Environment, Hon. Abosede Olaitan Buraimoh, appreciated the CDOs and urged them to work relentlessly to ensure the success of the programme in their respective local councils.
She disclosed that the state government places much premium on the NG-CARES programme as a way of alleviating poverty in the state, urging them to complement this effort by being alive to their respective responsibilities.
As intermediaries between the ministry and the communities, the commissioner told the CDOs to escalate any challenge being encountered on the field to the ministry in good time, with a view to addressing such hindrances accordingly.
Earlier, the Technical Head of LIPW Delivery Platform in Kwara State, Alhaji Shamsideen Aregbe, disclosed that the total number of youths expected to benefit from the programme was reduced from the initial figure of 1,638 to 1,025.
He, however, assured that other beneficiaries not captured in the first batch would be given due consideration in the subsequent batches.
Speaking on the importance of attendance register, Aregbe enjoined the CDOs to further sensitize the beneficiaries on the need to take the signing of daily attendance register seriously after each day’s work.
According to him, “this is the only document that will be used to make payment at the end of the month.”
Aregbe also stressed the importance of active participation in the daily work assigned to the beneficiaries.
Recall that the NG-CARES/Labour Intensive Public Workfare, which is an initiative of the Kwara State government, with support from the World Bank, was designed for vulnerable youths and women to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic among the less privileged people in the state.
