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CBN, Abia Government sign pact on creation of Entrepreneurship Centre in South East

By on March 5, 2016

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Abia State Government have signed a tripartite agreement on the establishment of the Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC) for the South-east zone of the country.

Abia State had outclassed other sister states to win the bid for the EDC to be established on its soil, a remarkable feat for the present administration of Governor Governor Okezie Ikpeazu.

The state Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Obinna Oriaku, who represented Ikpeazu, signed the agreement on behalf of the state government while CBN Director, Development Finance Department, Mr. Mudashiru Olaitan signed on behalf of the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele.

Speaking at the ceremony in Abuja, Emefiele said the quest for the CBN’s EDCs across the geo-political zones was aimed at promoting sustainable economic growth by developing entrepreneurship spirit among youths and provide insight in tools, techniques and framework to start, manage and expand their business enterprise as well as link them to financial institutions for a start-up-capital.

He said existing EDCs located in the North-east, North-central, South-south, North-west and South-west zones as well as an outreach in Minna, Niger State had achieved already significant results.

He said as at December 2015, EDCs in the North-east, South-south and North-central which commenced in 2013 had trained 17,727 participants, representing 98.5 percent of the target set while a total of 9,298 businesses were expanded.

The CBN governor said a total of 6,311 of the graduates, representing 35.0 percent of the target set had also accessed loans to the tune of N1,042 billion from various sources.

He added that the centers collectively created 14,069 direct jobs.
He said the second phase of the EDC programme under the tripartite agreement commenced in January 2015 North-west and South-west and had collectively trained 3,146 participants representing 78 percent of the target set while 160 participants representing five percent of target set had also been able to access finance, creating 1,159 jobs.

He said the signing ceremony will soon be followed by the official flag-off of the South-east EDC in Abia State.

He said while there’s need to change the mindset of young people to embrace self-employment rather than waiting for non existing government jobs, the CBN is committed to fulfilling its own part of the agreement.

He urged maximum cooperation from the state government and implementing agency in realising the strategic objective of the laudable initiative.

Responding, Ikpeazu assured the CBN governor that the state government would “work very hard” to ensure that the EDC succeeded in the zone.

He said the programme would also complement the various entrepreneurship programmes of the state government aimed at massive job creation.

He further assured the CBN governor that all requirements relating to the final take-off of the center would be speedily addressed by the state.

 

[ThisDay]