By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Bank of Industry (BoI) has stated that its Youth Entrepreneurship Support (YES) programme is expected to create over 150,000 direct and indirect job opportunities in the country.
This is in a bid to reduce the double digit unemployment rate figures.
This was disclosed by the acting Managing Director of BoI, Mr Waheed Olagunju while kicking off a five-day in-class capacity building session of the YES programme in Lagos.
Mr Olagunju explained that youths will have the opportunity to apply for loans as low as N100,000 up to a maximum of N5 million at single digit interest rate of nine per cent and a tenor running to three to five years.
He added that the scheme has witnessed great enthusiasm among Nigerian youths, maintaining that it had also recorded unprecedented participation thus giving a boost to the nation’s collective efforts in developing a generation of young aspiring entrepreneurs.
According to him, this will address the worrisome phenomenon of youth unemployment in the nation. Indeed, the Development Finance Institution stated that it had in the last one year, launched two initiatives aimed at tackling youth unemployment in Nigeria.
Mr Olagungu disclosed that, “We are expecting that in the first year, we would have about 10,000 beneficiaries who would have created jobs for themselves and also create jobs for other people. We are projecting that about 150,000 jobs direct and indirect will be created by these beneficiaries through their input suppliers and also through their distributive and retail networks
“In the second year, we are expecting that the numbers of beneficiaries would go up to about 20,000 creating about 300,000 jobs. We are expecting that if the scheme succeeds, the number of job opportunities both direct and indirect would continue to increase.
“We have no limit as to the number of beneficiaries to benefit from this initiative. All that is required is for them to come up with bankable proposals that are viable and sustainable, because there is no point financing a project that will collapse, because if it collapses, the aspiration of the entrepreneurs will not be achieved and the envisaged developmental impacts by way of jobs will also not be achieved.”
