The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has apologised to the National Assembly joint committee on labour following a clash between lawmakers and Festus Keyamo, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment.
The two sides were involved in a war of words last week over the planned employment of 774,000 Nigerians by the government.
This happened at a meeting aimed at discussing the progress of the planned employment.
Speaking at a meeting with Mr Lawan at the National Assembly on Tuesday, Mr Ngige said he regretted what happened last week.
“We regret what has happened…we apologise on behalf of the ministry.
“…I hope that you can forgive and forget and move forward…,” he said.
Mr Ngige also noted that Mr Keyamo has prepared a position paper on how the programme would be implemented but “nothing is sacrosanct there, we can still discuss.”
The National Assembly had in the 2020 budget appropriated N52 billion for the Special Public Works Programme aimed at employing 774,000 citizens, a thousand from each of the 774 local government areas in the country.
My Keyamo accused the lawmakers of wanting to sabotage the recruitment process despite receiving 15 per cent jobs slots.
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE), according to the lawmakers, is meant to implement the recruitment under a special works programme.
They had accused Mr Keyamo of hijacking the programme from the NDE. The minister hit back, saying they were the ones trying to take over the project.
The committee has since demanded that the programme be suspended until the modalities for the exercise have been explained to the lawmakers.
It also mandated its Committees on Labour and Employment to invite Mr Ngige and other relevant officials of the ministry to brief the joint committee on the modalities for the implementation of the programme.