774,000 Jobs: FG to train beneficiaries on how to invest N60,000 Stipend in Business as Exit Strategy

The federal government has disclosed its plan to take the 774,000 Participants in the just concluded Extended Special Public Works (ESPW) programme through Basic Business Training (BBT) in order to establish them with their 3 months N60,000 stipends.

The spokesman of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Edmund Onwuliri, on Wednesday, said the training was part of the exit strategy being rolled out for the participants of the programme.

Onwuliri further disclosed that the Training is scheduled to hold at a central venue in each of the three senatorial districts across the states and the Federal Capital Territory.

According to Onwuliri, the participants are expected to acquire the relevant skills that would enable them identify and manage micro and small businesses of their own after they exit the ESPW.

“While engaged in the three-month programme, participants were actively engaged in activities within the public works sector where they provided services such as environmental sanitation services in public places, drainage clearing and desilting, vegetation control, road traffic management and other community based and environment specific public works services.

“While providing such services, participants were paid a stipend of N20,000.00 per month for the period of three months that the programme was designed to last.

“One thousand unskilled persons were recruited from each of the 774 local government areas of the nation.

”It is expected that the training will further enhance the capacity of the participants to migrate from the transient job phase to a sustainable and self-reliant status thereby reducing mass unemployment among the unskilled and unemployed across the country,” Onwuliri stated.

Daily Trust in the recent report noted that "the participants of Programme which was implemented by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment through the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), are yet to receive their stipends in full more than two months after completion of the programme".

The commencement of the Second and Third Stipend Payment to many of the Participants followed an investigation by Daily Trust in which the participants decried the delay in fulfilling the payment part of the ESPW.