Vice President Namadi Sambo on Tuesday said that the current global phenomenon of youth unemployment is unacceptable to the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
The vice president said this at the inauguration of and technical workshop for states implementation committees of the community services, women and youth employment of the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) in the presidential villa, Abuja.
He said youth unemployment rate which is at 50 percent in several nations was the reason the federal government has evolved innovative methods of tackling the challenges of unemployment and that for decades, the country has been faced with high unemployment rates among the youths and strategies and institutional mechanisms put in place to create wealth have not yielded much result.
According to him, the community service programme inaugurated was to fast-track the design to employ 320,000 of the unskilled youth, women and citizens with physical challenges annually, noting that the programme and graduate internship scheme designed to train 50,000 graduates in private companies are part of the benefits of the partial subsidy removal under SURE-P.
While urging each sector of the economy to play its role in contributing to job creation, Mr Sambo said “the present effort under the SURE-P therefore builds partnership between the tiers of government on the one hand and across sectors on the other.”
He said in order to hasten the achievement of the programme; State Implementation Committees (SIC) have been established in each state and the federal capital territory, not only to guide the implementation at the state level, but to also serve as a platform for strengthening partnerships with states and local governments on employment creation.
Mr Sambo urged members of the committee to live up to expectations of government and justify the confidence reposed in them by their nomination for the assignment. He also warned them that “government would not tolerate any act of wrongdoing or corruption in the programme” as their inauguration was an act of matching words with action by the federation government.
In his remark, the chairman of SURE-P, Christopher Kolade, acknowledged the support which President Jonathan and Vice President Sambo have given to the programme. He said contractors in the programme and midwives have not been owed as they are paid promptly.
The Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Ministers of Women Affairs, Labour, Minister of State for Federal Capital Territory and representatives of the Minister of Water Resources and others attended the event.
