774,000 Jobs: Labour Minister, Ngige Apologises To National Assembly

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has apologised to the National Assembly over the recent face-off between the Minister of State For Labour, Festus Keyamo and the joint Senate and House Committees on Labour, Productivity and Employment.

The Minister tendered an apology on Tuesday when he led a delegation from the Ministry on a visit to the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, at the National Assembly, Abuja.

“We deeply regret the incident that happened, the altercation that followed it, between my Minister of State and members of the Joint Committee,” Ngige was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the spokesman to the Senate President, Ezrel Tabiowo.

The Minister noted that his visit was to give the lawmakers the necessary information needed to fast-track the Special Public Works Programme of the Federal Government.

Ngige also called for a good working relationship between the legislative and executive arms of government on the programme which he said was designed from the office of the President before the COVID-19.

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“Having visited your domain to the Joint Committee on Labour, Productivity and Employment over some issues of the Special Public Works Programme of the Federal Government, a programme that was designed by the Executive with the legislature, if the Executive makes a proposal and it is not funded, then that proposal will be dead on the table.

“Therefore, we decided that as a team, we would come with full force and give the necessary information that we need so that we can fast track this Programme which was designed from the office of the President before the COVID-19.

“We must work together without acrimony or even drawing a very rigid line of who has this power and who doesn’t. That is the only way the programmes of government can be made sustainable and executed for the benefit of our people.

“In the Seventh Senate, the National Assembly didn’t have a rancorous relationship with the Executive of Ebele Jonathan, even though some of us were in the opposition parties,” he said.