Stories by JONAH NWOKPOKU

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation/Youth Employment, Afolabi Imoukhuede, has said that  the Federal   Government is considering  tax holidays and rebates for qualifying technology start-ups in the country so that they can employ more people and grow the entrepreneurial sectors of the economy.

In an interview with newsmen on the occasion of the visit of the Minister of Communication , Adebayo Shittu, to the Yaba Technology Ecosystem Hubs in Lagos, Imoukhuede, said:   “We are working on the details to ensure that we get it right. We have a million jobs to be created this year and we have a target to create three million jobs over the next three years-2016-19.

“What is keen for me as the SSA on Job Creation is for us to be able to look at which sectors we can create jobs, and ICT, for us is a key area for job creations. For two reasons- you can create jobs within the sector, and you can use ICT as an enabler to also create a lot of jobs. That is why we are focusing on ICT and the digital world for jobs creation; it is therefore important that we visit places like Co-Creation, where you can achieve an organic growth.”

Bosun Tijani, CEO, Co-Creation Hub, in his presentation on ‘The Yaba Technology Ecosystem –How we got here and where we ‘d like to go,’ noted that there is no nation on earth today that can prosper without using technology.

According to him, beyond the incentives, government should patronize companies in th5s sector by giving them business.

He said: “For instance in the last election, we built a website   that   was used to encourage people on how to vote, when to vote ; we also built another site for ID cards registration- it was so good that INEC adopted it. Somebody paid for that work; that is the kind of collaborations we want. 60 percent of what we do here is building other peoples businesses by using our creativity and knowhow to make society better,” he said.