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The said inauguration was done by the Honourable Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN in Abuja.

Special Public Works (SPW) Programme is the initiative of the Federal Government of Nigeria in collaboration with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE). It is designed to immediately respond to grinding poverty at the lowest level of society that normally bore the brunt of such economic upheavals.

Please note that for the ease of supervision and monitoring of such a large programme, the President has approved the deployment of online technology. The technology will allow for robust supervision of ongoing works in various local government areas, a reliable tracking system for all man and materials used and a robust real-time monitoring system through online feedback mechanism from citizens, stakeholders and managers of the programme.

This programme is one of the biggest social intervention schemes to be carried out within a short period of time by any government in the history of Nigeria. It is also unique because it is the very first direct employment scheme of any government that targets the very bottom of the economy. Other intervention programmes have been in form of empowerments. This shows the proclivity of this President to protect and identify with the very poor.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE FOR 774,000 FG JOBS / SPW PROGRAMME

Below is the official website for 774,000 FG (Federal Government) jobs which is also tagged SPW Programme:

*** http://www.specialpublicworks.gov.ng

HOW TO KNOW OR CHECK THE NAMES OF YOUR STATE SELECTION COMMITTEE MEMBERS

It is very simple to know or check the names of your State Selection Committee members. Kindly follow the steps below:

#1. Go to http://www.specialpublicworks.gov.ng .

#2. On the home page you will see a Nigeria map, search or look for the map of your State.

#3. Click on your State (For instance, if you click on Ogun State, it will display all the Selection Committee members for that State).

HOW TO APPLY FOR 774,000 FG JOBS / SPW PROGRAMME

To apply for this opportunity, you will visit your Local Government Area Council individually to register. The Federal Government (FG) has made this known that “there won’t be any online registration.

The registration exercise will be coordinated by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), across all the 774 Local Government Areas in the country.

While responding to people’s question on why there is no online registration, the State Labour and Employment honourable minister, Festus Keyamo, explained that, the programme’s real targets for the jobs are mostly “unskilled rural workers” who may not be literate enough and who can’t have access to any online portal.

But he assured transparent selection process and the public publication of names of those enlisted on the scheme.

JOB DESCRIPTION FOR 774,000 FG JOBS / SPW PROGRAMME

Successful applicants or beneficiaries will be engaged in the following special public works:

* Drainage digging and clearance.

* Irrigation canals clearance.

* Rural feeder road maintenance.

* Maintenance of the Great Green Wall nurseries and orchards in Borno, Jigawa and Katsina States.

* Traffic control.

* Street cleaning.

* Cleaning of public infrastructure like Health Centres, Schools and the likes.

* And other direct transient jobs needed by each State.

OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT 774,000 FG JOBS / SPW PROGRAMME

#1. The duration for Special Public Works (SPW) Programme is 3 MONTHS, starting from OCTOBER 1ST to DECEMBER 31ST, and the monthly payment is #20,000 totalling #60,000 at the end of the programme.

#2. In regard to the fake news online that they are paying #60,000 per month, it is not true. The said #60,000 is for 3 months, so it is #20,000 per month. Special Public Works programme is meant to reach out to the “unskilled workers” in times of distress especially in this period of Coronavirus pandemic, so they are paying below the minimum wage for the following reasons:

A. To discourage all other categories of workers from entry. One vital tool for achieving this is to compete within the market wage bracket for that category of worker. This instantly discourages those who are not within that category. In countries where market wages are lower than the minimum wage the public works wages must be in the market wage level for it to effectively attract the right people.

B. The category of people the programme is designed for are largely “agrarian” and sometimes will have things to do in the morning or later in the evening on their farms or elsewhere. Things they have used to keep body and soul together. So the programme does not engage them like a regular job. They are not the typical “8 to 5” with coffee break in between. They work for “less hours” so they can still do the things they are used to as this is just a “three months” work like an internship.

#3. Despite the fact that SPW programme is targeting unskilled workers, the programme is designed to use all available electronic means of payment to Successful applicants or Beneficiaries. No cash movement will be allowed. So “banks must be fully involved”. The banks will be mandated to open accounts for beneficiaries, obtain BVN for them as well as register them electronically for the ministry in charge and NDE for the programme. So, the banks will share the programme registration data with the Ministry in charge and NDE.

#4. “Selected banks” will be used since the ministry in charge and NDE do not have limitless resources. They have determined that leaving the beneficiaries to register in any bank of their choice out of the many banks in the country, will not only render the programme more expensive but cumbersome.

Some of the advantages of dealing with a select number of banks with considerable spread include:

A. Logistics and resources of dealing with a few banks are justifiable as against dealing with all of them including ones that will end up with only a few of our beneficiaries because they have a few branches.

B. Easier to reach agreement on modus operandi, standardisation and the format of electronic data to be received from the few banks as against all of them.

#5. The following criteria will be used for choosing the banks:

A. Good financial standing with the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria).

B. Good spread within the country.

C. Presence in rural areas of the country.

D. Willingness to register and collate data for us as they open accounts for participants.

E. Readiness to seek out the beneficiaries for the purpose of account opening and registration for the programme.

#6. For the exercise to be effective the ministry in charge and NDE believe that they should get not too many but with a considerable spread all over the country, let say around 4 or 5 banks that can meet the set conditions, they will be satisfied.