My security vote spent on youth employment- Nasarawa Governor
Nasarawa State Governor, Umaru Al-Makura on Sunday said that his administration uses the security vote he receives to pay over 1,400 youths engaged by the state government under the Nasarawa Youth Empowerment Scheme, NAYES.
Al-Makura spoke in Lafia after inspecting some road projects in Adudu, Keana and Agyaragu.
He said the gesture became necessary following the zero allocation to the scheme in the 2014 budget proposal approved by the Nasarawa State House of Assembly.
Nasarawa State is controlled by the All Progressives Congress, APC, while the state assembly is under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
“I have decided to pay the money for NAYES from my own security vote and I have already converted them to my own Special Assistants, SA, let them do the work,” he said.
“It is not about nomenclature, but about service and about engaging them so that they don’t become liabilities on the streets”.
Mr. Al-Makura said that he would use the idea to deliver the dividends of democracy to people of the state who were not within “the statutory and bureaucratic enclave of the government”.
“Let me extend and expand the scope of that distribution of the dividend of democracy. I am going to do that for the youth, disabled, market women and the aged.
“Each of this category of people will get N20, 000 monthly support called “seed money”, Mr. Al-Makura said.
He assured the people of Nasarawa of conventional employment opportunities whenever the state revenue improves.
He said that the delay in offering conventional employment opportunities was due largely to the dwindling monthly revenue allocation of less than N3 billion to the state from the federation account.
He said that over N2.7 billion of the monthly allocation was going to civil servants as salaries and emoluments of political appointees.
(NAN)