$50m W’Bank facility: Bayelsa targets 7000 stopgap jobs

Bayelsa State Government plans to create about 7,000 temporary jobs by implementing projects funded from its World Bank $50 million development aid.

The facility is part of World Bank’s $200 million intervention in Niger Delta region, chiefly Bayelsa, Edo, Rivers and Delta states. It has a 40-year tenor and 10-year moratorium at concessionary interest rate.

Project Coordinator, State Expenditure For Results, SEEFOR, Bayelsa, Mr. Ayens Adogu, who disclosed this in Yenagoa after a project tour of completed and ongoing interventions, said more than 3,000 jobs had so far been created in the first phase of the project.

His words: “The SEEFOR project is a multi-sector project designed to bring series of reforms and interventions to improve the quality of life in the Niger Delta states of Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Rivers.”

Likely to exceed target: Adogu said there were indications that the state would exceed the targeted 7,000 jobs at the end of the second phase of the programme, following the successes so far recorded in the first phase.

He said the youths were engaged to provide labour for the concrete road projects for a period of one year and paid a monthly stipend of N20, 000, while a new set of youths would be engaged at the end of the year to rotate the jobs among the unemployed.

According to him, the development of some micro projects were implemented with direct labour approach primarily to engage unemployed youths, who were trained in skills and entrepreneurship, to enable them to seek self-employment at the end of the temporary jobs.

Inculcating funds culture: Adogu added that part of the conditions of the temporary one-year jobs included a compulsory savings, which could only be withdrawn at the end of the agreement to assist as start-up capital at the end of the one-year contract.

He explained that the SEEFOR project was collaboration between the Bayelsa government, World Bank and European Union to fund quick impact development projects like concrete walkways, streets, market stalls, craft centres and health centres.

Mode of selection: The benefiting communities, according to him, were selected based on needs and readiness of the communities to contribute 10 percent of the N10 million set aside for each benefiting community.