Africa
THE National Directorate of Employment (NDE) on Friday embarked on monitoring and evaluation of businesses of beneficiaries of its training and empowerment programmes in different areas of Ogun.
The Director – General of NDE, Abubakar Fikpo, told newsmen that the essence of the exercise was to monitor and evaluate the soft loans given to some unemployed trained by the agency on various skills acquisition.
Fikpo, represented by the state Coordinator of NDE, Alao Ismail, noted that it was high time the youth realised that white-collar jobs were no longer available.
He said that the Federal Government was doing its best to combat unemployment, adding that one of the best ways to achieve this was through encouragement of skills acquisition and entrepreneurship promotion.
“People are looking for white-collar jobs which are no where to be found, what NDE is doing basically is the attitudinal orientation. We are impacting skills on them so that they can stand on their own.
“We have small scale enterprises department, we encourage small medium enterprises, we train them, we give them loan so that they will go and establish their own business in order to curb unemployment,” he said.
The director – general advised the youth to jettison the mentality of looking for white -collar jobs, saying that they should try and learn a skill to enable them stand on their own and also be employers of labour.
One of the beneficiaries, Mrs Oluwakemi Jolaosho, a dealer in Adire fabrics in Abeokuta, said the loan and skills she acquired from the NDE programme had assisted in expanding her business.
Jolaosho explained that her Adire store had expanded to the extent that she had also trained over 100 people including youths and graduates on production and sales of Adire fabric.
Another beneficiary, Omolaja Bamgboye, a shoe maker, said that the skills and loan he acquired through NDE had improved his standard of living.
Bamgboye said that it had boosted his sales, urging the federal government to continue with the gesture.
He said that he had also trained over 15 youths who had graduated and also established their own businesses.
Also, Mr Tunde Ogunusi, a poultry farmer in Adigbe area of Abeokuta, said that his poultry farm was elevated with the loan assistance facilitated through NDE.
Ogunusi said that the gesture of NDE to reduce unemployment in the society was yielding result.
“I started my poultry with just 60 birds but now I can tell you that I have up to 234 birds.
“Government should reorientate the people especially the youths to shelve the idea of looking for white collar jobs at all cost. If you are in poultry, you make money every day if you are not lazy,” he said.(NAN)
– Jun. 17 2022 @ 17:10 GMT | C.E
Tags: Abubakar Fikpo National Directorate of Employment (NDE)
