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Labour ministry, SMEDAN focus on job creation

By on February 11, 2016

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment have given credence to the Federal Government’s plans to create jobs in the country.

Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the SMEDAN in Lagos, the agency’s Director-General, Alhaji Bature Masari, while highlighting the projected revenue and expenditure in the 2016 budget, said it was evident that job creation was the main focus of the budget.

According to Masari, provision for subsidised funding of priority sectors such as agriculture and solid minerals as well as financial training support to market women, traders and artisans through cooperative societies, as contained in the budget are commendable.

Highlighting other laudable initiatives in the budget, he said, “Youth employment agency to be established to train about 370,000 non-graduates in vocational skills. School feeding programme to be introduced in all primary schools in Nigeria. Microcredit scheme to be established to cater for about one million market women and artisans. Conditional cash transfers to the tune of N5,000 to the poorest families monthly.”

He explained that the country could be counted among the 20 most economically advanced nations in the world by the year 2020, if serious attention was paid to the development of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises.

This, according to him, is because MSMEs are the engine of industrial growth and generators of employment, creators of wealth and alleviators of poverty.

“The 2016 budget proposals have made major provisions for driving the development of MSMEs. SMEDAN will continue to support the development of MSMEs for economic growth and development in Nigeria through innovative and sustainable policies,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, justified the ministry’s 2016 budget proposal before the Senate Committee on Employment, Labour and Productivity.

The ministry had a proposed recurrent (non-debt) expenditure of N7.82bn and a capital expenditure N580m.

He stated that the ministry was poised to tackling the challenges of unemployment, using well-thought-out programmes, in which the basic ones were the graduate teachers’ conversion, skills acquisition programmes and Conditional Cash Transfer.

Ngige said, “The programmes of the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari are focused on employment generation. To this end, there is a change in our 2016 budget from what it used to be in the past because this year, we want to tackle unemployment and we will tackle it from all facets using programmes such as graduate conversion scheme and vocational skills acquisition programme among others, to ensure that our young ones are empowered for self-sustenance.”

In his remarks, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Employment, Labour and Productivity, Sen. Suleiman Nazif, gave the assurance that the committee would take a holistic look at the proposed budget while being mindful of the critical responsibilities of the ministry in the fight against unemployment.

He said,“We will go back and study your budget proposal. You can be assured that Nigerians will be proud of the outcome. I want to state that with Ngige at the helm of affairs in the ministry, we are sure that there are better days ahead.”

Nazif stated that the Ministry of Labour and Employment would need a lot of funds, adding that the committee would take oversight functions seriously after the passage of the budget to ensure effective utilisation of funds appropriated.
[Punch]