Minister tasks ITF on unemployment, economic recession

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Okechukwu Enelamah, has  charged the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) to lay more emphasis on   skill acquisition training, saying the Fund has the key to negotiate the nation out of the current economic recession.

Enelamah, who  stated this during the end of year performance review of the ITF, held at its headquarters in Jos, Plateau State, said the reason for the successes and the feat being achieved by the ITF was tied to its core values, which included integrity, loyalty, commitment, professionalism and creativity, efficiency and effectiveness and teamwork.

The Minister, who was represented by the Director Administration and Human Resources in the Ministry, Mr Dauda Mohammed, urged the management of ITF to go the whole hog to train many more Nigerians.

According him, ITF has done a lot in areas of collaboration, which have started yielding the necessary dividends. Adding that this should  be sustained and if need be, be improved upon.

In his remarks, the Director General of ITF, Sir Joe Ari said that in the corporate world, Merit Award Ceremonies provided platform for organisations to render in-depth accounts of how they fared during the preceding year, and also celebrate and reward stakeholders and members of its workforce, whose corporate and individual contributions were critical to whatever achievements that were recorded.

Said he:  “The ITF, like other organisations keyed into Merit Awards as an avenue to render accounts of its achievements and motivate workforce and stakeholders.  But year 2016 was like no other in the annals of the history of the ITF. Certain prevailing circumstances, beginning from the penultimate year, had ensured that the Fund, which was the cynosure of all eyes, could barely meet its statutory obligations leading to successive

leadership changes before the emergence of the incumbent Management on September 29, 2016.

“All these, coupled with the global economic recession that manifested in job losses, mass unemployment, the collapse of the money market and declining revenue demanded that the incumbent should hit the ground running so as to urgently salvage the Fund and pull it back from the brink while also instilling skills in Nigerians to ensure accelerated economic recovery, and drive the economic diversification agenda and other policies of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari”

He said  barely six months after assumption, the key objectives had either been realised, or on course to being achieved. He said the Fund perceived its challenges as opportunities to be exploited to the advantage of Nigerians.