The federal government has apologized to the National Assembly over the altercation on the planned recruitment of 774,000 persons for Special Public Works Programme.
The initiative was billed to start October 1 and each beneficiary will be paid N20,000 monthly to carry out public works.
The Minister of State for Labour, Employment and Productivity, Mr Festus Keyamo, had, last Tuesday, engaged in a shouting match with members of National Assembly joint committees on Labour over the membership of the 20-man selection committee.
Consequently, the legislature asked the federal government to halt the programme pending when it is properly briefed on implementation modalities.
On Monday, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, insisted that the programme remained suspended.
The Minister of Labour, Employment and Productivity, Mr Chris Ngige, tendered the federal government’s apology over
Keyamo’s action during a meeting with the leadership of the Senate on Tuesday.
He said the position of Keyamo was not sacrosanct. Keyamo was among the delegation but didn’t speak.
Ngige said, “We deeply regret the incident that happened at the last visit, the altercations that followed it between my Minister of State and members of the joint committees.
“Therefore, we decided that as a team, we will come in force and give you the necessary information that you will need so that we can fast track this programme.
“My minister of state has put out a position paper, that position paper, nothing is sacrosanct there. We can still discuss and agree after disagreeing.”
The Senate President, in his remarks, said all previous actions on the programme were null and void.
“We don’t recognize them. Go and start afresh,” he said.
Lawan insisted that the programme remained under the purview of National Directorate of Employment (NDE) and that the work of the labour ministry was only to supervise the implementation.
