NYSC identifies impediment to entrepreneurship programme

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), yesterday, identified lack of skill ac­quisition centre as one of the major factors affect­ing its Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) pro­gramme for all serving corps members.The Direc­tor of SAED, NYSC, Mrs. Mary Danabia explained that the programme was introduced in 2012 in a bid to empower young gradu­ates in the country, but the real goal had not been fully realised due to some impediments, ranging from inadequate funding among others. Danabia, who stated this in an in­terview with newsmen in Abuja, said in spite of the challenges, they had been able through the programme to reduce fear of finishing the one year mandatory service and get into the labour market among Nigerian youth. She maintained that over 500, 000 corps members had so far been trained by the programme, while 1600 of them had been ful­ly turned entrepreneurs. Danabia noted that sever­al of them were out there doing their various busi­nesses, but not yet fully li­censed due to bureaucrat­ic processes, adding that the scheme had been in consultation with regula­tory agencies to lessen the burden of registration to enhance their growth. She disclosed that the scheme and the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) are work­ing out facility that would take care of problem of getting collateral by corps members to access credit facility for their business­es.

Meanwhile, the NYSC has appealed to all orga­nizations, especially Min­istries, Departments and Agencies of Government, to always accept Corps Members posted to them for Primary Assignment.

A statement signed in Abuja by the NYSC Direc­tor of Press and Public Relation, Mrs Abosede Aderibigbe said; “all stakeholders, including employers, are requested to always give the young men and women of the Scheme the necessary support and encourage­ment by accepting them whenever posted for pri­mary assignment.“It is noteworthy that rejection of Corps members posted to organisations, result­ing in some of them roam­ing the streets in search of places of service, is at variance with the ideals of the founding fathers of the NYSC Scheme and should therefore be discouraged by all well-meaning Nigerians.” How illicit financial outflow destroy Nigerian econo­my-CDD…. Nigeria loses $83.3bn to illicit financial outflow – says AfDBJOEL AJAYI, ABUJA The Direc­tor, Center for Democracy Development CDD, Idayat Hassan, has disclosed that illicit financial out­flow remained one of the factors responsible for under-performance of Ni­gerian economy. The Civil Society Organisation’s, CSO’s, leader attributed the major cause of illegal financial menace in the economy to governance challenges orchestrated by weak institutions, inadequate regulatory environment and lack of transparency and ac­countability.Hassan, who made the disclosure at the Multi-Stakeholders meet­ing on Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) out of Nigeria organized by her group recently in Abuja, noted that the nation had suf­ficient resources to meet its developmental needs. According to her, the situ­ation for many years has strained capacities of gov­ernments in various ways and discouraged wealth creation to implement development policies.She said: “A further disag­gregation of the Mbeki Panel report sees Nigeria topping the league with a cumulative of $217.7bn dollars from 1970-2008 lost with over 90 percent loss related to oil. An alterna­tive spending analysis re­veals that the lost resourc­es can provide 870,000 schools at 50million naira each, over 400,000 hospi­tals at 100million etc, we can share our info graph­ics with further analysis of what alternative spend­ing can generate. “With judicious usage of the re­sources, the nation would have achieved the Millen­nium Development Goals (MDGs) as the country prepares to transit to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”What has become obvious is that we have to redirect our efforts to fighting IFFS in Nigeria for every $1 of foreign borrowing, on average more than $0.50 leaves the borrower coun­try in the same year,” the CDD boss added.She called on government to be focused and to re-dou­ble its efforts in fighting IFFs in Nigeria, pointing out that “strategies such as fighting borrowing should be adopted by the government to be a re­volving door where both external and private debts are connected as illicit funds are transferred.”In his remarks, the Country Director, African Devel­opment Bank (AfDB), Dr. Ousmane Dore, said that Nigeria had experienced a cumulative illicit fi­nancial outflow of about $83.3 billion. Dore pointed out that the recent Global Financial Integrity report also ranked Nigeria sev­enth among the top 10 high­est illicit capital outflows in the developing world and first in Africa. Ac­cording to him, Nigeria in many decades experienced a very serious problem with trade mis-invoicing, in the form of over-invoic­ing of imports and under-invoicing of exports for the purpose of shifting money out of the country. “Be­tween 1960 to 2011 Nigeria experienced cumulative illicit financial out flows totalling $83.3 billion or 5.6% of a total goods trade through trade through mis-invoicing only.”Export under-invoicing takes the larger share of $44 billion while the balance of 39.3b was due to import over-invoicing”, the AfDB chief added.