By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Federal Government is planning to provide loans of ranging from N200,000 to N2 million to members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) for the establishment of their own businesses after their mandatory one-year service.
This credit facility would be given to corps members after undergoing different skill acquisition and entrepreneurial development programmes.
This information was revealed by the Coordinator of NYSC in Osun State, Mr Emmanuel Attah, during a skill acquisition and entrepreneurial development inter-platoon competition and exhibition held at the NYSC Orientation Camp in Ede, Osun State on Tuesday.
According to him, the loans would be provided by the Bank of Industry (BoI), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).
It was disclosed that the loans would be given to the corps members in form of business items financing for the applicants depending on the nature of the business to be established.
When provided the interest-free loans, the beneficiaries would submit their NYSC discharge certificates as collateral.
“Interested corps members, who have undergone the SAED programme, will be given loans of between N200,000 and N2 million after the service year.
“The business proposal will determine how much will be given to each applicant and the loan will be interest-free with the NYSC discharge certificates used as the collateral.
“The discharge certificates will be subsequently returned to them after repayment of the loan, which has no time bound.
“The SAED programme and supporting loan were put in place after the NYSC observed that youths, after the service year, always end up unemployed and roaming the streets looking for non-existing white collar jobs.
“The skill acquisition programme will empower corps members after the service year to be self-employed and also be employers of labour. This will also reduce their involvement in criminal activities,” Mr Attah said at the event.
Dipo Olowookere