Coalition Supports Setting Of NYSC Trust Fund

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By; AMOS TAUNA, Kaduna


The Coalition of Ethnic Nationality Youth Leaders of Nigeria (CENTLON), has expressed support for a bill seeking to establish the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Trust Fund.
The group noted that the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps has brought better understanding among the youths of Nigeria, stressing that it further enhanced Nigerians appreciating the cultures of each other since its inception.
The spokesman of the Coalition, Comrade Abdulsalam Moh’d Kazeem, while briefing newsmen in Kaduna on Thursday, expressed delight of the Public Hearing on a Bill seeking to establish the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Trust Fund on the floor of the House of Representatives.
He said, “The Coalition believe that President Muhammadu Buhari who has shown unprecedented support for youth development via provision of various low interest rate facilities to budding businesses will gladly sign the passed bill into law.”
He observed that the NYSC at its inception mobilized 2,364 Graduates for the scheme, due to the proliferation of government and private owned tertiary institutions to meet the need of the population, the scheme now mobilized over 400,000 graduates annually, stressing that it implies that more funds is required to achieve the objective of the scheme.

“We are aware that the NYSC was established under a tripartite arrangement, with the Federal, States and Local Governments having various responsibilities as spelt out in the NYSC Act Cap N84 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
“However, with the dwindling resources accruable to the various tiers of Government, the funding of the NYSC has continued to reduce drastically to the level that major responsibilities of the States and Local Governments are shifted to the Federal Government,” the coalition explained.
The group stated that considering the unquantifiable role the scheme has been playing in promoting national cohesion and giving fresh Graduates needed work experience in most organisation, called on believers in the Nigeria project to support the Bill that seeks to establishm a Trust Fund for the NYSC, akin to that of the Tertiary Education Fund, TETFund, Gas Infrastructure Fund that was recently established in Petroleum Industry Act.

According to the Coalition, it noted that the Bill seeks to address the infrastructural deficit in the orientation camps and provide lodges for corp members in states and Local Government Areas, while ensuring adequate provision of other operational logistics, expand NYSC ventures to enhance revenue generation as well as address the problem of graduate unemployment in the country through training and empowerment of corp members.

The group believed that the successful passage of the bill and its implementation would play a significant role in curbing the menace of insecurity, as all  ex corp  members with business ideas that will secure funding thereby keeping them busy and equally position them as employers of labour.

It explained that the bill is coming at a time Entrepreneurship studies has been made compulsory for all courses in the over 200 Tertiary Institutions of learning, saying that while the students are trained to be self reliant, the Fund will help to business ideas of corps members to make them self reliant and employers of labour.

It added that such innitiative would stand challenge of time in the country history, considering the fact that entrepreneurship is one the new order of the 21st century, adding that such fund will help breach the gap the generation faces and go a long way carry the youths along in the country. 
The coalition, therefore, called on the House Committee on Youth Development to tidy up their report for final passage by the house and concurrence by the Senate.

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