The Bank of Industry (BoI) has completed entrepreneurial skills training for 131 youths from Taraba and Adamawa in various entrepreneurial skills for job creation and self reliance.
The bank is collaborating with the African Community Bridge Foundation (ACBF) in the scheme.
Declaring the training open, Alhaji Dahiru Bala, the branch manager of BoI in charge of Taraba, Adamawa and Gombe, said “This training is the Federal Government’s deliberate policy to equip them with adequate entrepreneurial skills and provide you with loans to run profitable businesses in order to boost the economy”.
“The training, under the government’s Youth Empowerment Scheme Programme (YES-P), is structured in such a way that you cannot just be self reliant but will also create jobs for other youths in the process”.
He explained that what the trainees were going to get from the bank after the training was not a grant but a loan which they would pay back within three years of doing the business.
In his remarks, Dr Lucky Onmonya, the Programme Director of African Community Bridge Foundation, advised the trainees to take the exercise seriously through it they would gain life transforming skills that would guarantee their future.
He added that the ACBF had assembled very competent hands to take the trainees in various trades, noted that the training was more valuable than the loan itself.
Mr Abba Akawo, the Taraba State Commissioner for Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, commended the Federal Government for taking practical steps toward tackling unemployment in the country.
Akawo, represented by Mr. Emeka Ukaegbu, a deputy director in the ministry, urged the trainees to take advantage of the opportunity to get the nation out of its current economic recession.
