President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, has called for closer coordination between agencies of the government that are in-charge of youth development and job creation in order to ensure that Federal Government’s policies and programs on job creation are aligned across the board.
Speaking at a one-day Special Public Hearing on Youth Job Creation and Entrepreneurship, the Senate President who stated that it futile to blame past administration for job creation programmes urged the Executive, National Assembly, private sector and civil society organisations (CSOs) to focus immediate attention on tackling youth unemployment and developmental crisis facing the country.
“It is futile to point fingers or cast blame on any one administration and/or government program. Nigeria’s youth deserve our immediate interest, best thinking and above all, our best efforts to create workable solutions to include their concerns in our national investment framework, “ he said
At the end of the Public Hearing, after listening to the participating CSOs and representative of the MDAs of the Federal Government, the Senate President noted that a lot needed to be done to ensure effective inter-agency coordination and sustainability of job creation and empowerment programs of government.
Saraki said: “There is clearly a lot of work that needs to be done. There is clearly poor monitoring in most cases. There is also a lot of overlap between agencies and departments of the Federal Government, however, there is not enough inter-agency collaboration.
“For as long as we continue to spend money on training young people, with no plan on what they should do after these trainings, there is need for a central point in the Federal Government where the coordination of some of these youth job creation activities is to be done.
