BY ORIOLA AFOLABI
The Federal Government has developed a roadmap to revamp Nigeria’s economy through various Social investment Schemes.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo stated this in Ado-Ekiti at the Flag-off of the Extended Special Public Works Programme targeting to provide Seven hundred and seventy four thousand jobs for the teeming Youths across the country out of which Ekiti got sixteen thousand beneficiaries.
Otunba Adebayo listed some of the Schemes to include National Youths investment Funds targeting Five Hundred thousand Youths, Micro Enterprise Programme created for women, MSME Survival Fund, Artisans and Transport Grant, Guaranteed Offtake Scheme among others.
He explained that the Schemes were designed to resuscitate the the country economy and cushion the effects of COVID 19 pandemic which he said had brought untold hardship on the teeming Nigerians.
Otunba Adebayo maintained that the administration of President Buhari remained resolute in the efforts to create, jobs, reduce restiveness and engage unemployed graduates through adequate provision of favourable environment for Youths to set up their businesses and impart meaningfully on the nation’s economy.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and investment who observed that seven hundred and seventy four thousand jobs provided by the federal government was part of measures to engage the people, reduce the effects of Coronavirus and build the Nigerian economies, tasked beneficiaries of the Schemes to always carry out the objectives of the programme in order to draw more national Schemes to the state.
The Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi who appreciated the Federal government’s intervention programme, said that Ekiti considered the Scheme as a veritable tools to engage Ekiti Youths.
Governor Fayemi noted that the programme would have multiplier effects on the Ekiti Economy, to the tune of one billion naira.
Represented by the Deputy Governor Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi, Governor Fayemi called for more collection efforts between state and federal Government to address unemployed rate, build virile and society.
He assured that the beneficiaries of permanent jobs in both public and private sectors.
Earlier, the Acting Director General, National Directorate of Employment, NDE, Mallam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo promised the Agency’s commitment to continue to implement Government policies and Programmes inline with objectives of reducing unemployment and ameliorate the suffering of the people.
Mallam Fikpo said that the participants of scheme would be engaged in drainage clearing, irrigation, maintenance of public infrastructure like health centres, schools, roads among others.
The State Chairman of the Scheme and Chief of Staff to Ekiti State Government, Mr Biodun Omoleye called on the participants to carry out their assignments inline with Federal Government objectives and not to see the Scheme as a share of national cake.
Mr Omoleye said that Government would not hesitate to disengage any beneficiary who put up a lackadaisical attitude.
The Beneficiaries of the Extended Special Public Works Programme are one thousand per Local Government each of sixteen Council Areas in Ekiti State had been provided with working tools, such as jackets, wheelbarrows, cutlasses, spades, booths, hand gloves among others.
