just in!!! CBN Sets Aside N2.5 Billion For NYSC Members

The Central Bank of Nigeria has disclosed that it had set aside a total sum of N2.5 billion for members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members with good business ideas.

Speaking during the event at the NYSC camp in Abuja, Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said the initiative would enable the CBN to conserve the

 huge foreign exchange which had been spent in importing food items and to also address the challenges of youth unemployment in the country.

The N2.5bn which was set aside out of the N220bn Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development fund would be disbursed to the youth corp members under the Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YEDP).

The CBN is targeting to create a total of one million jobs through the YEDP which is the initiative of the apex bank launched on March 15 this year by the CBN Governor.

Under the program, the Central bank in collaboration with Heritage Bank Plc would develop the entrepreneurial capacity of the youths as well as provide them with fund of a maximum of N3m each to operate a business.

The activities to be covered under the programme are startups and expansion projects in the agricultural value chain (fish farming, poultry and snail farming), cottage industry, mining and solid minerals.

According to him, each Corps member is entitled to N3m adding that their discharge certificate as well their degree certificate would be used as collateral to secure the loan.

He said, “It is not a grant and it is a loan that must be paid. We are determined to give support to the youth and I truly must thank the National Youth Service Corps who has helped us to put together the first set of NYSC, so that we can nurture them as young entrepreneurs, not as people who go into the world looking for jobs.

“We want to nurture them as people who are developing the entrepreneurial spirit, entrepreneurial skills, not only for their good but also for the good of the country.

”We do not anticipate that any of them fails. However, we have as collateral their NYSC certificate as well as their degree certificate. We know that our youths know the importance of their degree certificates as well as their NYSC certificate as collateral for this loan.

”I don’t think that somebody who has got a degree certificate or HND certificate to attain a gainful employment or a gainful life will abandon his certificate or his NYSC discharge certificate just because he wants to take a loan and not pay,” he added.

The Director General of the scheme, Brigadier-General Sule Kazaure, commended the CBN for initiating the program for corps members.