Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, minister of Finance, has said that the Federal Government has created 1.6 million jobs in the past 12 months.
Okonjo-Iweala disclosed this during her presentation at an interactive session with the private sector, where she said that a total of 432,021 jobs were created during the first quarter of the year, adding that this figure represented about 11.69 per cent increase over the number of jobs created during the fourth quarter of 2012.
She stated, “We have created 1.6 million jobs in the past 12 months. 431,021 jobs were created in the first quarter of 2013, showing an upward trend in job creation and an increase of 11.69 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2012.”
Okonjo-Iweala said a key government programme focused on direct job creation was the Community Service Scheme, which aims to engage 320,000 youths in labour intensive work such as construction and rehabilitation of social and economic infrastructure.
According to her presentation, about 120,000 people have been employed so far under the scheme, which is being anchored by the Subsidy Re-Investment Programme.
She also listed the Graduate Internship Scheme, which aims to attach 50,000 graduates to competent firms to enhance skills development towards employability. She noted that 4,000 graduates had emerged so far under the scheme.
According to Okonjo-Iweala, who spoke on the “Economy’s macroeconomic performance for 2013 and the outlook for 2014,” the Gross Domestic Product growth is expected at 6.75 per cent at the end of 2013, up from 6.61 per cent in 2012.
She recalled that the GDP growth in the first three quarters of 2013 stood at 6.56 per cent, 6.18 per cent and 6.81 per cent respectively.
The minister noted that economic growth during the year had continued to be driven by the non-oil sector.
However, she lamented that the rate of economic growth as well as the quality of growth had been very slow, underscoring the need for improvement.
“Nigeria needs to grow faster in the job-creating sectors at between nine to10 per cent per annum to create the number of jobs needed to substantially reduce poverty,” she said, adding, “GDP rebasing, which is currently in progress, could increase GDP substantially but its impact on growth rates is not yet certain.”
She further noted, “Economic growth needs to be more inclusive as inequality is high and rising in Nigeria; this needs to be reversed.”
In order to achieve this, the minister said the Federal Government would in 2014 make efforts to ‘remove structural bottlenecks’ in sectors as power, ports, rail, roads, communication technology (broadband) and aviation.
Also, there will be an improvement in the business climate and efforts will be made to reduce bureaucracy and fight corruption.
She gave the assurance that the government would in 2014 enact supportive polices for sectoral growth in agriculture, housing, manufacturing, creative industries, solid minerals, oil and gas and petrochemicals, among others.
“We will also build social safety nets for vulnerable women, children, and the disabled to address regional disparities,” she added.