The Director General of Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Joseph Ari has urged politicians in the country to invest in skills acquisition for their supporters to fight unemployment and poverty ahead of the 2023 general elections.
He noted that the skills will fill the vacuum created by jobs lost as a result of COVID-19 which compelled most companies to close down.
Ari disclosed this on Tuesday while declaring open the 2021 annual review meeting tagged, “Actualizing ITF Mandate in a VUCA World” held at the ITF headquarters, Jos.
“Any good student of Nigerian politics will be aware that activities on the year preceding any major election are dedicated in most part to electioneering as politics take precedence over economic development and other governmental matters including skills acquisition.
“The last election cycles revealed the tendency for people aspiring for political offices to leverage skills acquisition as a campaign tool. As the leading Human Resource Development Agency in Nigeria, how do we take advantage of this situation to boost our training activities.”
Ari explained that the Central Bank of Nigeria is currently proposing a new initiative titled RT200 FX that will require commercial banks to source their foreign exchange requirement through the promotion of Non-oil exports, as a means of deepening the diversification of the economy as well as shoring up the country’s foreign reserves.
“The programme, which seeks to generate over 2 billion dollars, will involve the encouragement of commercial banks by the CBN to support the value chains of MSMEs for non-oil export.”
He noted that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning said the Federal Government in the 2022 budget committed N2 trillion to the capacity development of Nigerians.
He said these are among several government policies unveiled by the government as parts of efforts to grow the national economy.
“If I were to assess our performance as an organization, especially within the last few years, I will not hesitate to say we have performed commendably on all facets of our activities and programmes”.
