Departments
Benue Assembly suspends plenary for members to undergo coronavirus tests
The Benue House of Assembly has suspended its plenary sessions to allow lawmakers and members of staff to subject themselves to COVID-19 screening. Mr Tertsea Gbiseh, the Chairman House Standing Committee on Information and Orientation, announced this in a statement issued to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Makurdi. The statement said the decision to undergo COVID-19 screening by members was arrived at after the noticeable spike in cases around the state. “Going by the nature of the Assembly’s functions which warrant us to interact closely with constituents at the grassroots on one hand and top government functionaries in Ministries, Departments and Agencies, on the other hand, it has become imperative to embark on regular COVID-19 tests due to the risk of exposure encountere...
Oyo HoS urges workers to comply with coronavirus guidelines
The Oyo State Head of Service, Mrs Ololade Agboola, has called on civil and public servants in the state to comply strictly with the COVID-19 guidelines, as they resumed work on Monday. Agboola, in a statement issued on Monday in Ibadan by her Media Officer, Mr Abiodun Atilola, listed wearing of facemasks, regular washing of hands/use of sanitisers and observance of social distancing as some of the precautionary measures. She further stated that the workers were restricted from moving from one office to another, except for very important official purposes. Newsmen report that workers from grade level 12 downward resumed duties on Monday to join their counterparts on grade level 13 and above who had resumed work after the March 27 closure of the secretariat due to coronavirus. Agboola furth...
NDE trains Kano women on face mask production
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in Kano State says the training of women on face mask production is part of the agency’s continuous efforts to tackle unemployment. The Kano State Coordinator of NDE, Alhaji Iliyasu Ahmed, made this known on Monday at a training organised for the beneficiaries at the NDE Skills Centre in Kano. Ahmed said that the training was organised in collaboration with Future Assured Initiative of First Lady, Hajiya Aisha Buhari. He said that the women who were tailoring trainees of NDE would produce 20,000 safety face masks for the people of the state. Ahmed said that the training was part of the Directorate’s mandate to drastically reduce unemployment and poverty among youths and women. He said that the agency was on the verge of recruiting 44,000 art...
Emirates plans to cut about 30,000 jobs amid virus outbreak
Emirates Group is planning to cut about 30,000 jobs to reduce costs amid the coronavirus outbreak, which will bring down its number of employees by about 30 per cent from more than 105,000. A media reported on Sunday that the company was also considering speeding up the planned retirement of its A380 fleet. An Emirates spokeswoman said that no public announcement has been made yet by the company regarding “redundancies at the airline”, but that the company is conducting a review of “costs and resourcing against business projections”. “Any such decision will be communicated in an appropriate fashion. Like any responsible business would do, our executive team has directed all departments to conduct a thorough review of costs and resourcing against business projections,” the spokeswoman said....
National Assembly leadership meets finance minster over 2020 budget amendment
The Leadership of the National Assembly on Thursday met with the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning to be briefed by the latter on the plan by the Federal Government to amend the N10.59 trillion 2020 budget passed by the National Assembly in December last year. The meeting which had in attendance principal officers from both chambers, was presided over by the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila. The Senate President, in his welcome address told the Executive arm of Government to ensure that the interest of Nigerians remains protected in the proposed cut to the 2020 national budget. Lawan also expressed the willingness of the Federal lawmakers to expeditiously consider the proposed amendment to the 2020 budg...
Kaduna university expands online lectures to cover undergraduates
The Kaduna State University (KASU) says it has expanded its current online lectures to cover all departments in postgraduate and the undergraduate programmes to keep the students learning while on Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. The university’s Director of Academic Planning, Dr Salisu Tahir, made this known in an interview with newsmen in Kaduna on Monday. Tahir said that the university’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) team had recommended the use of Zoom platform for postgraduate lectures and Google Class for the undergraduate lectures. He said that the university had begun a week-long training for the academic staff to effectively adopt the user-friendly platforms to teach the students. He added that the directorate of academic planning had developed a module to enable ...
CSO commends National Assembly move to probe alleged N40 billion fraud in NDDC
Pool Photo A Civil Society Organisation, under the aegis of Niger Delta Movement for Peace & Justice, NDMPJ, has commended members of the National Assembly for setting up an ad-hoc committee to investigate the alleged N40billion fraud levelled against the Interim Management Committee (IMC) in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). National Coordinator of NDMPJ, Comrade Etifit Nkereuwem in a statement made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Uyo, said his organisation had long expected the National Assembly to take action against the Interim Management Committee which was inaugurated without backing in line with its oversight function. Nkereuwem regretted that the reason behind President Buhari setting up the IMC and forensic audit to end the financial recklessness and properly...
