The Managing Director, Vintage Farms and Products, Elele, Chief Mike Elechi has called on the Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike to lay emphasis on creating those he described as incubators of entrepreneurs across the 23 local government areas of the state.
Elechi, who made the call in a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt hinged his point on what he christened “well-established environment and infrastructure,” made possible by the present administration,” said human capital development “would further cement entrepreneurship.”
According to him, such opportunity will enable people to be self-reliant and not to wait for white-collar jobs.
“It is about time people end the era of dependency on salary and become independent,” he said.
The Vintage Farms and Products Managing Director, used countries such as China as a study, where a greater percentage of its citizens are entrepreneurs and said the state would have a safe landing, if it could imbibe such culture.
“The government should direct its social welfare sector to educate people about entrepreneurship. It should be included in the school curriculum,” he said.
The business tycoon stressed that absence of initiative was the reasons for the current unemployment in the country, as the government alone could not employ everybody.
“Government cannot employ everybody. The companies are dwindling, sacking workers instead of employing because what the government at the centre had provided does not help them to grow,” he said.
On economic value, he said: “the state under Governor Wike’s watch has recorded more development when compared with past administrations.”
Chief Elechi further stated that the proposed loan for civil servants and petty traders in the state was part of social services and human capital investment, saying it was part of the governments’ responsibility to empower the people.
Meanwhile, he has discouraged culture of raw cash empowerment to the youth: that “such monies should rather be channeled to entrepreneurship training programmes for them, especially in the area of agricultural development.”