By Vincent Ujumadu
Awka- MINISTER of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has said that the task of generating employment for the teeming unemployed Nigerians would be placed on the National Directorate of Employment, NDE.

Ngige, who spoke at a ceremony in Awka for the resettlement of graduates of vocational skills development programme in Anambra State, observed that through NDE, the Federal Government would vigorously push the frontiers of providing decent and sustainable jobs for the unemployed.

He said: “Those of us charged with the task of creating jobs for the teeming unemployed Nigerians have long put on our thinking caps. In the next two months, the second phase of this exercise would have been carried out and I want to assure Nigerians that over 2800 new businesses would have been generated across the country through the resettlement scheme of the NDE.”

According to the Minister, the resettlement scheme seeks to empower already trained persons in any vocational skill with relevant starter parks to enable them start small businesses, adding that in the last one month, NDE had recruited and placed in training another 1850 persons nationwide under the community –based training scheme.

He explained that beneficiaries of the training scheme were carefully designed to cater for the needs of the rural dwellers.

He said that apart from the training, another 370 agricultural entrepreneurs under the NDE commercial farmers training project have received soft loans amounting to N37 million to start agro-business in each of the36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

Acting Director General of NDE, Mr. Kunle Obayan said that in addition to 30 persons empowered in Anambra State, another 220 in the state who received training earlier but were not empowered received their lifeline at the weekend.

Obayan said that it had always been the desire of NDE to empower all those it trained, assuring Nigerians that the organization would not relent in its task of providing employment opportunities to the unemployed Nigerians.