Over 200,000 Plateau graduates are unemployed – Plateau Assembly 

Nanbol Listick, the minority leader and chairman House Committee on Labour and Security, Plateau State House of Assembly has said over two hundred thousand (200,000) Plateau State graduates are unemployed.

Lipstick made the revelation during the Committee interface with the newly inaugurated Chairman and members of the Plateau State Civil Service Commission on Wednesday in Jos.

According to him, data collected from an informal survey by civil society groups and other organizations shows that over 150,000 youths of the state who are graduates are jobless while another 50,000 are in some menial jobs earning below N50,000 naira monthly.

He informed the chairman and members of the commission that the purpose of the interface was to enable both the Committee and the Commission to be on the same page in charting a way forward for the good of the state and the civil service system.

He urged them to look into the state workforce, as engaging the idle youths with a good working environment would to some extent ensure peace and security in the state. Nanbol said the workforce of the state is grossly inadequate as some people have retired, some died while others have left the service for better offers elsewhere.

He added that they should also look at issues of promotion of civil servants and do it on a merit basis. He also charged the chairman of the commission and his team to look into the structure that is housing the commission and the working tools of the office as well as mobility for official functions to improve them.

Listick while appreciating the Chairman and members of the Commission, reminded them that their appointments showed that the governor of the state has very high expectations of them revamping the state civil service. He assured them of the Assembly’s support for them to succeed in their new responsibility to ensure a well-informed civil service in the state.

Responding,  Paul Samani Wai, chairman of the commission thanked the Committee saying, the interface was a good move for a better understanding.

He informed the Committee that the structural decay and the system needed a complete overhaul for better service delivery. The chairman also informed the Committee that they had met with the Secretary to the Government of the State and they have given their position to the government, parts of which were the need for an ICT unit in the commission.

He revealed that the commission has only 2 functional computers and without a single utility vehicle, dilapidated structure and furniture with a meagre overhead cost to run the commission.