THE Federal Government has blamed the downturn of the economy as reason why it failed to create the three million jobs it promised.

Speaking on behalf of the government is the minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, in an interview with Sun Newspaper.

Ngige also blamed corruption as being responsible, stating that with corruption it was impossible to create jobs.

“…if you have corruption, you cannot have resources to create jobs. Job creation to be specific is a multi-faceted; multi-sectoral affair involving all strata of the economic chain of the country,” he said.

Ngige said the government choosed to diversify the economy because “with the drop in revenue, we have to fight for our lives, we fought for the economic life of the Nigerian people, what do we do, we now said diversify into agriculture and mining. Jobs were created from mining, jobs were created from agriculture because those farmers you see have created jobs for themselves, they created jobs for some of their children who cannot get jobs, they have created jobs for their daughters and wives and so they became the blue collar job people.”

He also stressed that if not for the government’s intervention, the sack of workers in the private sector would have been much more than what it is now.

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