FG: 8m new farmers emerged in 4 years

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi and Musa Adamu

The federal government has revealed that through its anchor borrowers programme, in addition to other revolutionary policies of the present administration in the agricultural sector, about eight million new farmers were created over the past four years.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, made this disclosure in Abuja while keeping senators abreast with the achievements of his Ministry, during the 2019 budget defence session he had with the Senate Committee on Labour, headed by senator Abu Ibrahim (Katsina South).
The Minister who was specifically answering questions on what the government has done to mop up the youths who are roaming the streets in search of jobs, said there are three categories of jobs which the government has created, including: White collar jobs, blue collar jobs and punk collar jobs.
He said the government has created millions of jobs in the informal sector, especially empowering women and artisans, adding that the federal government has also lifted embargo on employment so as to offer more white collar jobs to jobless people.
However, he emphasized that job creation in every country of the world is not the sole responsibility of government, but that private sector plays a significant role, urging industry players in Nigeria to have job creation orientation in plying their ventures.
Meanwhile, he presented the N7.33billion 2019 budget of the ministry before the Senate committee asking them to approve the proposals to enable it continue with its policies, enumerating the budget to include: N1.8billion for personnel, while overhead cost stands at about N1billion, and N4.2billion for capital expenditure.
He said the 2018 budget of the ministry was N6.5 billion, of which N1.6billion was for personnel, while overhead cost was N787.7million, of which N3.9million (56%) was released, just as out of the N4.2billion capital budget of ministry, only N1.8billion was released, representing 42.7%.
Earlier before the budget presentation by the Minister, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Labour, Abu Ibrahim said the government is poised to creating more jobs for Nigerians.