By Raymond Gukas, Jos
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Richard Adebayo has hinted that the Industrial Training Fund, (ITF), is living up to its mandate of providing jobs for Nigerians: adding that what was required at the moment is support.
He stated this in Jos, Plateau State at the occasion of the ITF, 2019 Merit Award were the different Area Offices of the Fund were rewarded for their various contributions and achievements in the fulfilment of the organisation’s mandate.
Represented by the Director-General of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, (NECA(, Timothy Olawale, he commended ITF saying “ITF of today has positioned itself as a high flying distinguished parastatal of government worthy of emulation by others.”
According to him, the perceived unemployment in the country is as a results of existing skills gaps which hinder citizens from being gainfully employed, which he noted that the lack of skills narrative was being corrected by the ITF which is working hard to equip citizens with skills for gainful employment.
Also speaking at the event, Mariam Katagum said, “Nigeria has job opportunities but no skills manpower, and the ITF is working hard to correct that, keep the good working relationship.”
For Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, through his Commissioner for Special Duties, Jerry Werr, “the ITF has contributed effectively to the State development through training of our citizens and we are willing to continue to support ITF activities as it concerns human capital development.”
Earlier, the DG, ITF Joseph Ari lamented that”It is common knowledge that as a nation, we are contending with the problems of poverty and unemployment, the strange paradox is that despite these, vacancies still exist in various sectors of the national economy.”
According to him, “skills gap survey showed that vacancies existed in four sectors namely, Services, Agriculture, Construction and Transportation that were in some cases being filled by non-Nigerians because of the absence of Nigerians with the requisite technical skills.
“To prepare Nigerians to effectively take over these sectors, beginning from 2016, the Fund initiated a number of skills acquisition programmes particularly targeted at these sectors.”
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