Kenyan President, Kenyatta hails Elumelu’s TEF for committing $100m on youths’ dev
Just as his entrepreneurial mentorship tour of East African region rounds up in Kenya, the Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta, has commended Nigeria’s entrepreneur and philanthropist, Tony Elumelu, for committing $100 million using his Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) to identify, fund, train and ultimately empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs.
The president who hailed him for grooming emerging African business champions said, he is doing a good job supporting growth, and expressed his gratitude for the selection of 74 entrepreneurs from Kenya as part of this year’s 1000-member entrepreneurship programme, which is now in its fourth edition.
Kenyatta averred that “It is a great thing to see Africans coming out forcibly to build to Africa through initiatives such as this. Our continent is endowed with massive resources; we do not have to always rely on support from elsewhere”.
Kenyatta who spoke with Elumelu at the State House, in Nairobi, argued that Africa as continent is in dire need of the likes of Tony Elumelu to drive to empower budding African entrepreneurs.
In his response, the Africapitalism campaigner and chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA) said “the objective of the scheme is to create over one million jobs and add $10 million in revenues to Africa’s economy over our ‘decade of entrepreneurship,’ which started in 2015”.
While noting that the 74 entrepreneurs from Kenya are part of a group of 1,000 entrepreneurs selected from 150,000 applications from the 54 African countries, Elumelu expressed optimism that the 74 Kenyan entrepreneurs selected by his foundation will champion entrepreneurial development in Kenya and lend their support to local initiatives that will drive inclusive growth and development in the country.
