The Senate has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to direct the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity to set up a Committee to review the age limit for job seekers in the country to allow competent applicants to be employed by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government.
\nThis comes as the Upper Legislative Chamber approved the sum of N168,809,476,220 to fund the proposed Personnel, Overhead and Capital expenditure cost of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for the 2020 fiscal year.
\nThe approval came following the consideration of a report by the Senate Committee on Finance.
\nChairman of the Committee, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC \u2013 Lagos West) while giving a summary of the 2020 budget for the FIRS said N1.56 trillion was projected for Oil revenue; N4.502 from Non-Oil revenue; N180.086 billion projected for four percent cost of Collection; N11.279 billion as projected two percent Cost of Collection ceded to the Nigeria Customs Service; N168.80 Net projected four percent Cost of Collection available rose FIRS to be appropriated by NASS; and Value Added Tax (VAT) at 7.5 percent.
\nThe Senate, while adopting the recommendations of the Committee\u2019s report, called for the digitization of all processes in the administration of tax in FIRS, so as to bring the Service up-to-speed with rapidly increasing online economic activities.
\nThe upper chamber also approved a one-off special purpose intervention fund to the tune of N100 billion to assist the FIRS complete its head office within 12 months; six (6) Training Schools; 30 Prototype Tax Operations Office; Purpose-built facilities for efficient taxation of Upstream Petroleum Industry and ICT Infrastructure to identify and track digital transactions.
\nThe call to review the age limit for job seekers was made in a resolution which followed the consideration of a motion brought to the floor by Senator Ibrahim Gobir (APC \u2013 Sokoto East).
\nComing under order 42 and 52 of the Senate Standing Rules, Gobir noted that recruitment requirements of MDAs and other private bodies which set age barriers \u201cinadvertently excludes and marginalizes skillful and competent prospective applicants from participating in such exercises.\u201d
\nAccording to the lawmaker, \u201cdue to the high unemployment rate in the country, many graduates spend up to 10 years seeking employment and this puts them in a disadvantaged position by no fault of theirs.\u201d
\nHe added that, \u201cmany individuals resort to falsifying their age all in a bid to fall within the required age limit for them to be gainfully employed.\u201d
\nHe warned that \u201cthis development, where a person believes he is unemployable can lead them to embracing criminal activities and further increase the growing crime rate and\u00a0insecurity in the country.\u201d
\nSenator Bala Ibn Na\u2019Allah (APC \u2013 Kebbi South), in his contribution drew the attention of the upper chamber to the Federal Government\u2019s embargo on employment over thirteen years ago.
\nAccording to him, the embargo period must be factored into the review of age limit by the Ministry of Labour and Productivity for prospective job seekers in the country.
\n\u201cI think the motion is apt and timely. The major basis for the Senate to proceed on that request lies in the fact that, as an institution, we must take notice that the federal government on its own placed embargo on employment for over thirteen years now.
\n\u201cThe period that there have been embargo by the federal government in itself should be considered in the review of age limit.
\n\u201cFor example, if the age limit is 23, we must now add the 13 or 14 years of embargo on employment to the age already earmarked for employment, so that the age will be plus thirteen, because it is the government on its own that placed the embargo on employment.
\n\u201cThere cannot be justification for you to place embargo on employment, then at the same time expect graduates to remain at the age they were during the period of the embargo.
\n\u201cI think in the review, that has to be taken into account, and therefore, the age limit can now be raised in addition to the established age. That should be the legal verdict for the review\u201d, Na\u2019Allah said.
\nThe Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, in his remark bemoaned the discrimination against job seekers as a result of the barrier imposed by the prescribed age limit.
\n\u201cIt is not through a fault of theirs that people are discriminated against. They\u2019ll tell you only 30 years limit, meanwhile someone graduated ten years ago.
\n\u201cThis is a very good motion urging the Ministry of Labour and Productivity to swing into action immediately,\u201d the Senate President said.
\nMeanwhile, the Senate on Wednesday also confirmed the appointment of Dr. Tella Adeniran Rahmon representing Osun State as Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).
\nAlso confirmed was the appointment of Engr. Usman Mahmud Hassan as Commissioner of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
\nThe confirmation of both nominees followed the consideration of the reports of the Senate Committees on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC); and National Planning and Economic Affairs.
\nThe Committees are chaired by Senators Kabiru Gaya (APC \u2013 Kano South); and Olubunmi Adetumbi (APC \u2013 Ekiti North).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Senate has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to direct the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity to set up a Committee to review the age limit for job seekers in the country to allow competent applicants to be employed by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government. This comes as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":14404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15,7],"tags":[125,1893,142],"class_list":["post-27298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-jobs","category-news","tag-firs","tag-seekers","tag-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}