The minister of labour and employment, Muhammad Dingyadi, has called for more budgetary allocation for 2025 to enable the ministry to scale up its performance of job creation and other key areas of its mandate.

Mr Dingyadi said this at the 2025 budget defence meetings with the House committee and the Senate committee on employment, labour and productivity, respectively, on Monday in Abuja.

He said that the funds, if approved, would be used to renovate, reconstruct, and re-equip the skills development centres under the ministry and its agencies across the country, aimed at generating employment.

According to him, one of the key priorities of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda is job creation, which falls under the ministry of labour and employment.

“For us to achieve this noble objective, we need special funds to renovate, reconstruct, and re-equip the skills development centres under the ministry and its agencies across the country.

“We are aware that many of the infrastructural projects in this year’s budget can be used to create jobs for our teeming youths.

“However, over 60 per cent of such jobs are unskilled jobs that are not sustainable. Once the project is completed, many of them will go back to becoming unemployed.

“The best solution to unemployment is the creation of skilled jobs with starter packs, where trainees will set up their own self-sustaining jobs to contribute to the economic growth of the nation,” he said.

He also said that the total budgetary allocation of 2025 for the ministry and its parastatals was over N46 billion and that it would not be sufficient to attain the set objectives.

The minister maintained that skill development programmes of the ministry would generate sustainable job opportunities for individuals, which would ultimately promote national economic growth.

Mr Dangyadi added that creating jobs through skill development was crucial to achieving part of the federal government’s agenda.

Also, Sen. Diket Plang, chairman, Senate committee on employment, labour and productivity, said that the ministry deserved a boost to its budgetary allocation to enable it function effectively.

Speaking, the chairman, House committee on employment, labour and productivity, Adefarati Adegboyega, emphasised the significant role of skill development in the economic growth of the nation.

Mr Adegboyega said that sustainable employment programmes, such as skill development, would provide a permanent solution to unemployment.

He added that this was unlike occasional palliatives that only offer temporary relief.

(NAN)