Beneficiaries Emerge For N1bn ASOPADEC Fund

No fewer than 2,200 participants in the Abia State Oil Producing Area Development Commission (ASOPADEC) skills acquisition programme are to benefit from its Nl billion loan scheme.

Funds for the loan scheme, according to Chief George Nnanna-Kalu , Chairman of Training Programme Committee in the commission, will be provided through a counterpart arrangement between ASOPADEC and the National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND).

“Nnanna-Kalu said that in the funding, the commission and NERFUND would provide N500 million each, adding that ASOPABEC is already sourcing for its own contribution to the project.

He told newsmen in Umuahia that participants in the programme would be drawn from the 17 local government areas in the state.

He disclosed that the programme was being implemented by the commission in collaboration with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE).

“What we are doing is to teach the youths how to fish rather than giving them fish and by so doing, help to reduce the level of unemployment in the state.”

He said that the micro-credit loan would attract eight per cent interest rate but with a six-month moratorium, adding that the repayment period was two years.

He said that the trainees would be organised in groups according to their skills of training and registered as cooperative societies.

Nnanna-Kalu said that the training would cover poultry, fishery and piggery, among other agricultural activities as well as other entrepreneurial skills and would last for three months.

He said that the programme was designed to provide jobs for the teeming unemployed youths in the state.

According to him, it will trigger a turn-around in the lives of the beneficiaries who are the first batch.

He said that the commission would partner with the manufacturers of equipment and other items that would be needed by the trainees after graduation “so that they can have direct supply of good quality items”.

The committee chairman also said that the commission would monitor and evaluate the performance of the beneficiaries after their graduation to ensure that they succeeded in their businesses.