Cbn Sets Target Of 1 Million Jobs In 5 Years For Youths With New Post Nysc Programme

Source: thewillnigeria.com

SAN FRANCISCO, March 15, (THEWILL) – The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it had set a target of 1 million jobs in five years with its Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YED-P) which is expected to impact on entrepreneurial skills of youths by providing affordable credit scheme to corps members and those with five years post NYSC experience.

Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor, at the launch of the programme on Tuesday, in Abuja, said the first phase would be targeting 10,000 youths with the aim of creating one million direct jobs within the next four years adding that it will be an equal opportunity programme across gender and geopolitical zones.

“Credit line will be made available up to N3 million to each eligible youth, thereby fixing the problem of inadequate finance often encountered by business start-ups,” he said.

“Recipients who utilise the funds properly could be encouraged to migrate to the other CBN interventions wherein, to access more funds.

“Collateral requirements are very simple to include assets such as academic and NYSC certificates, third party guarantees and other movable assets.”

In his submission, the Director-General of NYSC, Johnson Olawunmi, revealed that since the inception of the skills acquisition and entrepreneurship development in 2012, the NYSC scheme had trained over 500,000 ex- corps members in various agro-based skills.

Olawunmi noted that not all the 500,000 ex-corps members were empowered to start up the business, as the challenges had always been inadequate access to fund but expressed optimism that with the newly launched (YED-P), the NYSC entrepreneurs would now enjoy unhindered access to start-up fund.

“The stringent lending conditions of most financial institutions compound efforts being made by the scheme to link corps members trained under previous initiatives,” he said.

Story by David Oputah