Economy
THE Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment (FMITI), says its Skill-UP Artisans Programme (SUPA) will empower 10 million Nigerians with industrial skills to support the Federal Government’s industrial resurgence drive.
Dr Doris Anite, Minister, FMITI, said this during her presentation at the Ministerial Sectoral News Conference in commemoration of President Bola Tinubu’s first anniversary on Tuesday in Abuja.
Anite said the programme led by the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) had commenced training and development of industrial skills in partnership with Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) and international certifying organisations.
She said the programme would also empower artisans with both tech and non-tech skills training, licensing, access to essential toolkits, and promoting industry-standard excellence.
The minister said SUPA also addressed the skills deficiency among artisans and standardised artisanal practice.
“This programme ensures the availability of a skilled workforce for domestic industries, thereby reducing labour import dependency.
“Over a two – year period, the programme aims to empower 10 million hard-working Nigerians, and reflects the government’s commitment to promoting economic development and improving citizens’ standard of living, and job creation.
“SUPA is now training the first cohort in construction, such as masonry, welding, iron bending, pop, tiling among others.
“We sent out a call to entry and for this cohort we received over 500,000 applications and after verification across the country, we are set to start training 100,000 applications in over 770 training centres across the country.”
The minister said the ministry had recently established the Renewed Hope Job Centre, in collaboration through SMEDAN, to match available vacancies in industries and businesses with available talent pools across the country.
“This is both a physical and digital location. We are currently piloting and will roll it out across the country.
“So far we have matched 4,000 people to job opportunities in various Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
“We have increasing applications from job seekers and we are also increasing our reach out to businesses to post their vacancies.”
She said the ministry had also inaugurated the National Talent Export Programme (NATEP) to create one million jobs including talent to exchange/export, business process outsourcing and job outsourcing.
Anite said NATEP was created as a response to President Bola Tinubu to illegal migration of Nigerians in search of job opportunities.
She said NATEP would help Nigerians work in foreign lands with the right job placement and documentation to preserve the dignity and earning power of Nigerians.
According to her, it will also help to save us from embarrassments and reputational issues due to illegal migration.
“We are engaging and signing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with world class organisations and governments on this.
“So far we have signed an MOU to outsource 50,000 jobs from the USA to Nigeria to tap our IT skilled workforce to provide tech support for businesses in the U.S..
“We are also about to start physical talent export with our MOU that will help to place Nigerians in jobs across the Middle East and Europe.”
The minister listed some initiatives and achievements by the agencies under the ministry in the past year.
She said no fewer than 16,000 jobs had been created in the past year, through programmes and interventions by SMEDAN.
Anite said company registration could now be completed in 24 hours with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), adding that 2,549,000 businesses had been registered so far.
She said the Product Authentication Mark Scheme had been inaugurated by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to streamline identification, improve market surveillance, and combat substandard and counterfeit goods in Nigeria.
The minister said the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission had commenced an extensive price monitoring drive to manage price gouging and the attendant inflation.
“The commission is set to launch the price monitoring app to help consumers make informed decisions.”
She said the 5.83 billion dollar ORASHI Special Energy Free Zone was approved by President Tinubu in January 2024 to enhance the development of gas processing activities in Nigeria.(NAN)
F.A
May 29, 2024
Tags: Artisan programme Ministry To empower 10m Nigerians
