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The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) is to collaborate with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) on job creation in the tourism sector.
The Director-General of NTDC, Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, made the statement in Abuja on Tuesday when a delegation of NDE officials, led by the Director-General, Malam Abubakar Mohammed, visited the tourism village.
He said there was a need to remove unnecessary bottlenecks that existed among government agencies for the country to move forward.
Runsewe said the visit was to open a new chapter for the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonthan to be achieved.
According to him, if NDE is working fully well, the hope of Nigerians will come alive.
``If there is food on the table and there is something to keep people working, there will be no Boko Haram and we will have relative peace in the country,’’ Runsewe said.
He called for more funding for NDE, adding that every sector should key into its programmes to ensure that jobs were created for the youth.
Runsewe said the partnership with NDE would generate jobs and promote the Nigerian arts and crafts industry.
Earlier, Mohammed stressed the need for both agencies to meet and find ways of developing some activities of mutual interest that would enhance their mandates.
``Two of us have concluded that the inner logic of the transformation agenda of Mr President is that agencies of government must do things in different ways.
``There are old tendencies that we must drop for us to succeed; we cannot continue with institutional rivalry with each of us being territorial.
``We must do things in synergy, collaborate and co-operate and in doing so; we are not unaware of our individual mandates and objective, ’’ Mohammed said.
He said it was NTDC's mandate to develop tourism sector while NDE would be carried along to create jobs.
``It is very clear that while the NTDC mandate is developing the tourism sector, the NDE has the right and the duty to go into any sector in this country to create employment.
``Therefore, as agencies of government, you develop the sector and we come around and create employment to enhance the development outcome around the area,’’ he said.
