THE Yobe State coordinator of National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Alhaji Adamu Ba’aba, has identified “lack of funds” as bane of creating employment, because only 65 of 297 or 25 per cent of trained graduates in the state were equipped with tools and take-off grants.
The coordinator made this known recently in an interactive session with reporters in Damaturu on the rising rate of unemployment and inability to create more jobs for the unemployed.
He said: “When you train somebody and do not settle him with tools and take off grants to work with, his skills cannot be put to use to fight poverty and unemployment among the youths.”
He therefore appealed to the state and local governments to assist the graduates and trainees with working tools to start their business ventures.
“Public officers must also come forward to provide their people with the working tools because, leaving it to government alone cannot provide jobs and solve the problem of unemployment” said the coordinator on how to reduce poverty and unemployment in the country.
Ba’ aba described the rate of unemployment and poverty in the state as scary and unacceptable, stating that “we were looking for 100 hands to clean the streets at N3,000 per month but more than 400 people turned up for the job opportunities that were not advertised.
He said that politicians should emulate the federal legislator representing Bade/Jakusko federal constituency, Alhaji Zakariyau Galadima, who provided N2 million worth of tools to graduands from his constituency.
He also called on Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), faith-based organisations and wealthy citizens to join hands with NDE and other relevant agencies in combating poverty and unemployment.
The NDE, he said has a lot of skill acquisition programmes, including graduate attachment programme, environmental beautification scheme and many more that can provide people with means of livelihood.
But the problem, he however noted, is the lack of working tools to start the job creation activities.
If the NGN30m for constituency projects per senator and whatever was for the Reps were treated as capital budgetry provisions and channeled directly into such constituencies, without passing through such legislators, some of these problems would solve themselves.