Ben Ezechime, Enugu
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) says it has trained 5,533 beneficiaries in various fields under the Renewed Hope Agenda of the President Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government.
Mr Silas Agara, the Director General of NDE, made this known in Enugu while urging Nigerians to assist the organisation to promote the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs and the industrial sector.
Speaking at the just concluded 36th Enugu International Trade Fair, Agara said that the promotion of SMEs would help create more jobs and grow the Nigeria economy.
The DG, who was represented by Edmund Onwuleri, said that the NDE needed the cooperation of every Nigerian to ensure that the SMEs and the industrial sector were nurtured to grow in order to provide jobs for the teeming youths.
“We urge all stakeholders to join hands with NDE in promoting the growth of Nigeria’s SMEs and industrial sector generally. Together we can create more prosperous and inclusive economy that will ben fit all Nigerians,” he appealed.
He cited the provision of over 5,532 youths with skills who were trained under the Renewed Hope Employment Initiative of Mr. President as part of the efforts of providing jobs for Nigerians.
In his remarks, Governor Peter Mbah said his administration has been committed to ensuring that poverty is rooted out in the state by ensuring that people are gainfully employed.
Mbah, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Prof. Chidiebre Onyia, Governor Mbah said the government could assist in job creation by creating the enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
He said since assumption of office, they noticed challenges that could debar investors from investing in the state and moved to ameliorate them.
“One of the key things in our statement is to work towards a zero poverty headcount in Enugu State. To do that, we had to ensure that people are gainfully employed. We created enabling environment for private sector to thrive and to create jobs.
“What we have done since we assumed office is to ensure that we begin to address some of the gaps we saw as challenging for investors to come into Enugu,” he said.
To encourage more investors come into Enugu Mbah said that they addressed the issue of “double, triple taxation” by harmonizing our tax outlook in Enugu State.
He also said that they made land acquisition easier by ensuring that within a specific period, of 48 hours to get the land title documents for their lands.
Mbah said they invested heavily on security to ensure that insecurity does not scare investors from the state.
