28th May, 2012
The Lagos State Government is set to engage another batch of 5,000 school leavers for vacation jobs this year as part of government’s efforts to keep the youths busy and productive during the long holiday. The vacation job programme kicks off in September, 2012.
The Head of Service, HOS, Adesegun Ogunlewe, at a ministerial news conference pointed out that over 5,000 students were engaged last year and were paid the sum of N20,000 each, adding that 23,000 students had so far benefited from the scheme introduced in 2007 by Governor Babatunde Fashola.
Reeling out his office’s achievements in the last one year, Ogunlewe said no fewer than 252 staff of the state government had benefited from the staff housing loan scheme put in place by the government to alleviate the suffering of its staff on housing.
According to him, the aim of the loan was to bring succour to the staff in the purchase of land, building residential houses and renovating existing residential accommodation.
While noting the commitment of the state government to the provision of houses for its citizens, the HOS said the present administration was planning to embark on a mortgage policy that would enable both workers of the state government and the general public purchase houses with monthly payment arrangements.
Ogunlewe disclosed that in spite of the subsisting service-wide embargo on recruitment, exemptions were given in special areas of need as 1,680 officers were recruited between June 2011 and April 2012, adding that the Ministry of Education had recently placed advertisement for teachers’ recruitment to fill vacancies, particularly in areas of critical need for public secondary schools.
On transformation, the HOS said the state government had embarked on the transformation of the state public service, using a strategy developed in partnership with the UK Department for International Development (DFID) through its States’ Partnership for Accountability, Responsiveness and Capability (SPARC) programme.
He stressed that “the objective of the transformation centres on re-shaping how government functions and re-engineers its processes and systems is to ensure the implementation of government’s development programmes in a more effective and efficient manner.”
—Kazeem Ugbodaga