The Nigeria Jubilee Fellowship Program, NJFP, has deployed more than three hundred of its Fellows to various Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, including some public enterprises in Ebonyi State, Southeast Nigeria.
The Director General of Ebonyi State Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency, EBSMEDA, Dr. Stephen Odoh disclosed this at the weekend while exchanging views with newsmen in his office in Abakaliki, the state capital.
He explained that the Nigeria Jubilee Fellowship Program is a Federal Government project, jointly funded by Nigerian government and the European Union, EU, and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP.
Dr. Odoh further described the program as a talent incubator, adding that it seeks to ensure the employability of fresh graduates by connecting them to practical on-the-job skills through a 12-month paid placement opportunities in private and public sector of the economy.
According to him, “the EBSMEDA is a talent hunt as it is designed as a scalable model for facilitating a transformative and impactful transition of fresh graduates from learning to earning.”
Odoh, a former commissioner in the Ebonyi State Ministry of Business Development, disclosed that over seven thousand NANO business operators in the state have benefited from the N50,000 grant approved by Governor Francis Nwifuru, earlier this year, to boost their businesses and enhance the economic growth of the state.
The former Commissioner also said that the Agency was created by Governor Nwifuru to serve as one of the means of addressing his People’s Charter of Needs mantra in the state.
Continuing, he said, “Governor Nwifuru has a special interest in the ease of doing business in Ebonyi State. The creation of EBSMEDA is to ensure a clear cut commitment to the survival of Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs through grants, access to financial linkages, capacity building, and linkage to other financial organisations, and these are ways of promoting business growth and development in the state.”
He recalled that on his assumption of office , last year, he embarked on tour of the thirteen local government areas of the state, to identify priority products in the areas, for agricultural value chain development.
Upon identification of the priority products, he said, “the local government chairmen were encouraged to develop the program as it brought some federal agencies, including NAFDAC, FIRS, SON, BOI, and CBN, to the state, to sensitise small business owners on means of accessing loans and grants for business promotion in the state.”
“Currently, you can hear the deployment of 382 fellows of Nigeria Jubilee Fellowship Program to different ministries and public enterprises in Ebonyi State.This was coordinated by this office. We are also involved in the agriculture programme with the CBN, working with the Global Bank and local governments,” Odoh added.
He further commended Governor Nwifuru for his maximum support to EBSMEDA, and observed that his government meant well for the SMEs in the state, just as he recalled that between December 2023 and January this year, a total of seven thousand NANO business operators in the state, had received government’s grants, ranging from fifty to three hundred thousand naira each, to boost their businesses and enhance the economic growth of the state.
“What we call NANO is the lowest level of businesses such as women frying akara, vulcanizers, barbers, phone accessories dealers and the rest of them. We support them to make their businesses grow,” he further explained.
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