‘SEEFOR project created 10,000 jobs in 4 states’

The Permanent Secretary of the National Planning Commission (NPC), Mr. Bassey Akpanyung, has said the State Employment and Expenditure for Results (SEEFOR) being implemented in states has created over 10,000 jobs.
He said this at the National Stakeholders’ Validation Workshop on the Informal Sector Study Draft Report of the four states of Edo, Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers where the project is being implemented.
The federal government incepted the SEEFOR project in 2013 to be piloted in the four states with about N696.50 billion ($350 million) in five years.
The pilot project was financed by credit of N398 billion ($200 million) by the World Bank and additional financial support from other donor bodies such as the European Union (EU).
Mr. Akpanyung said the informal sector, which the project targets, holds the key for the nation’s economic prosperity.
Presenting the report, the Director General of the Nigerian Institute for Social and Economic Research (NISER), Professor Olufemi Taiwo, revealed that the size of the informal sector in the four states in terms of contribution to the GDP averaged 34.89 percent.