By Kingston Obung
Calabar
The Federal Ministry of Trade, Industry and Investment has stated its resolve to partner the National Association of Enterprise Employers (NAEE).
Making this commitment in Calabar during the graduation ceremonies of NAEE national, zonal and states officers who passed through a 5-day training for entrepreneurs, organised by the South South CBN Entrepreneurship Development Centre, (CBN-EDC), weekend, the director in charge of small and medium scale businesses in the ministry, Mr Opaluwa John, said such partnership was necessary.
He noted that it was only through partnership that more jobs for Nigerian teeming youths could be created, and therefore charged members of the group to “capitalise and utilise federal government’s interventions schemes for the benefit of your individual businesses because success in your businesses would help the entire country.”
He said further, “the federal government is partnering with this initiative because you are going to generate more jobs and create wealth. Government alone cannot achieve this; the private sector is the main driver of every economy. I appreciate CBN-EDC for a great job but let me reiterate that after this batch, more will come.”
Also speaking, the Director-General of the organisation, High Chief Solomon Akpan, said the group, which he said has membership strength of over 50,000 entrepreneurs and businessmen spread across the country, has capacity to employ about 250,000 unemployed Nigerians as each member is mandated to take away from the streets at least five persons in line with the federal government resolve to eradicate poverty, youth restiveness, vices like cultism and armed robbery.
Akpan lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for providing enabling environment for entrepreneurs to thrive but called on the federal government to expedite action on empowering members of the body so they could assist in making life better for the citizenry through well-planned employment strategy.
In his remarks, the South South CBN-EDC Manager, Mr Emeka Nnamani, commended participants for successfully passing through the training but tasked the graduands to make good use of the knowledge they acquire.
