The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) trained about 23,512 Nigerians in various vocational schemes in 2016, its Acting Director-General, Olakunle Obanya, has said.
Obanya told newsmen that although the number represented a slight improvement over the 2015 figure, it was however a far cry from the number of persons trained by the agency in 2013 and 2014, adding that body’s efforts were hampered by poor releases of budgeted capital funds.
He said due to poor budgetary releases, the Directorate was unable to implement some of the critical job creation initiatives it planned for 2016, such as the registration of the unemployed and the rice production project through cooperative societies in the six geopolitical zones.
He said out of the N1.8 billion capital allocation to the NDE in 2016, only N154.058million was released, leaving a balance of N1.7 billion thereby affecting the ability of the Directorate to deliver maximally to the nation.
While expressing optimism that 2017 will be better for the Directorate, Obanya said already, it has secured a collaboration with the Michigan State University in the US, to train about 10,000 graduates with sponsorship from MasterCard.
