By Gertrude Onyekachukwu-Uteh
Delta State Government has created more than 100,000 direct jobs through various skills acquisition and enterpreneurhip training, enterprise startup and enterprise support programmes for youths, women, girls, persons with disabilities, widows in the past six years in its efforts to engage unemployed youths to become self-dependent.
The Chief Job and Wealth Creation Officer of the Delta State Job and Wealth Creation Bureau, Prof Eric Eboh, made the assertion when he presented a paper to Officers/Participants of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji who were on a five-day study tour to Delta State.
Prof. Eboh in the paper entitled: The Interface between Peace & Security and Socio-Economic Development in Delta State 2015 to Date, said the objectives of the paper were to expose participants to the state’s socio-economic development strategies; policies and programmes; landmark achievements; to show significant milestones made in improving the social and economic well-being of Deltans under Governor Okowa’s leadership style of inclusiveness, and to prove that the resultant effect of socio-economic development was peace and security.
He explained that the stable balance of social and political order in the state was the reasons Deltans enjoy conducive social atmosphere for the pursuit of livelihoods, smooth execution of development programmes and projects of government, the reasons investors have confidence to invest and why free scarce public resources were made available for other developmental expenditures in infrastructure in roads, schools and health.
He listed other milestone achievements of the State Government to include sustained progressive improvements in living standards of the people such as in food security, health, education, sanitation, water, energy, employment/job security, social and economic wellbeing, self-actualization and happiness, ease of living and access to basic amenities, reduced economic inequality and social harmony, improved economic security for the people among others.
Prof. Eboh referenced statistical reports by the National Bureau of Statistics which posited that, “the economy grew from N2.9 trillion in 2015 to N4.47 trillion in 2019 with an increase of 51%, and ranked as number one in human capital development by the National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria (NCCN) in 2017 for its performance in health, education and gender equality; also coming as the 2nd least poor state in Nigeria in 2019/2020, after Lagos State as compared to the its position of 12th least poor in Year 2010, unemployment rate being 31% less than the national all-states average of 37.2%, a proof that Delta State is doing better in tackling youth unemployment compared to other states.”
On efforts to engage youths in the state to become self-dependent, he disclosed that from 2015 to date, the State Government had created more than 100,000 direct jobs through various skills acquisition and enterpreneurhip training, enterprise startup and enterprise support programmes for youths, women, girls, persons with disabilities, widows, etc.
He added that more than 1,000,000 indirect jobs were created through public investments in infrastructure development (roads and transport, health, housing, urban facilities, government buildings), agricultural value chain interventions, SMEs enhancement schemes, public private partnerships and joint venture activities.
He said the programmes of the Delta State Job and Wealth Creation Bureau, the Skills Training and Entrepreneurship Programme (STEP) and the Youth Agricultural Programme (YAGEP) alone trained and established 6,046 youths in the past six years, in addition to the contributions of other job creation programmes as the Girl Entrepreneurship and Skills Training Programme (GEST), the Rural Youth Skills Acquisition Programme (RYSA), the Women Empowerment and Skills Acquisition Programme (WESAP), the Information and Communication Technologies Youth Empowerment Programme (ICT-YEP) and the Delta State Enterprise Empowerment Scheme (DSEEP).
According to him, “Wealth is being created in Delta State through pro-poor programmes and social investment interventions at the bottom of the pyramid-support for women owned enterprises, widows, support for persons living with disabilities, skills training for fresh learners and upscaling for others, support for youth owned enterprises, micro credit and grants and entrepreneurship and business monitoring.
“Through public investments in infrastructure and public services to improve the ease of doing business and by extension, greater private investment -infrastructural development, improved social amenities, agricultural and agro-industrial interventions, cordial industrial relations, massive private investments among others leading to peace and security.”
He concluded that the State Government approached peace and security from a developmental solution approach through inclusive governance, sound planning, faithful execution of people-centred policies and programmes and outstanding leadership of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa.
