General Manager of the Lagos Resident Registration Agency (LASRRA), Mrs Yinka Fashola, has decried the growing rate of unemployment across the country, saying 85 per cent of applicants for the resident registration exercise are PhD and MSc holders.
She said the PhD and MSc holders applied for jobs which were meant for secondary school leavers and a few National Diploma (ND) holders because of unemployment in the country.
Fashola, who until her appointment as the LASRRA boss served in the Office for National Statistics in United Kingdom, said the agency would have loved to increase the salaries of the applicants who obviously should have earned more because of their qualifications, but the agency was hampered by inadequate fund.
Speaking on the preparation to register Lagos residents, she said: “Yes, some of the applicants are holders of PhD and Msc as well as other qualifications. Where am I going to put them? But we have taken some of them as station manager; I can only choose 57 of them to work in the 57 Local Government and Local Council Development Area (LCDA). So, what would I do with the rest of them?
“Most of them are on contract for one year. I wish I could keep them, but we can’t. We are paying them N25, 000 per month. I wish it is more, but we did not expect that graduates and post graduates would be applying for the jobs.”
She, however, encouraged residents to avail themselves of the online registration in order to make the exercise easier.
According to her, the rationale behind the exercise is to enable the government allocate resources efficiently.
Fashola said: “The exercise will enable the government know what are the electricity needs, what are the water needs, which area need more schools and which environment requires more hospitals and other basic amenities. The only way the government can know this is through registration of residents.”
Asked if the 1,500 registration agents would be enough to register estimated 21.5 million residents, the LASRRA boss said the exercise was continuous exercise, saying all measures to ensure successful had been put in place.