House Faults Minority Caucus’ Claim of Lopsided Allocation of 774,000 Jobs
A cross section of members during plenary
Udora Orizu in Abuja
The House of Representatives yesterday decried the allegation made by the minority caucus of the House that the method used in the allocation of slots for the recruitment of the federal government’s 774,000 Public Works Scheme was in favour of certain interests in the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus of the House had last Tuesday in a statement issued by its Minority Leader, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, while rejecting the 30 slots given to each lawmaker, alleged that the formula used is in favour of certain interests in APC at the detriment and disadvantage of majority of Nigerians.
But in a telephone call with THISDAY, the Spokesperson of the House, Hon. Benjamin Kalu (APC, Abia), said all the lawmakers, both APC and PDP, got equal slots and any claim that the APC benefitted more is unfounded.
Kalu chided the caucus for making it a political affair, saying they should be grateful to the APC for not discriminating while sharing slots for the jobs.
He said if PDP were in government, they would have given higher slots to their party members and lesser to APC lawmakers.
Kalu made the reference to the Sure P programme which was created by the PDP, saying it was specifically run by the PDP government and no member of the House or Senate, who was in the opposition, benefitted anything from the programme.
The lawmaker also pointed out that the majority caucus of the House was considerate while choosing the committee leadership of the House by giving some A rated committees to members of the PDP.
According to Kalu, ‘’The opposition at all times has the right to disagree with any position of the ruling government, and you cannot guide the opposition in expressing themselves in any issue they feel is not according to their expectations but it’s also important to note that the opposition in this case, the minority caucus in the House, which is speaking only for themselves and claiming that the APC benefited more, is actually unfounded.”
