Federal government has announced plans to restructure the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to make it flexible for Nigerian students in the diaspora to partake in the compulsory national youth service scheme.
The minister of finance, budget and national planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed made the disclosure yesterday at the presentation of the 2023 draft budget in Abuja.
The current practice makes it mandatary for a Nigerian who schooled abroad to partake in the scheme within three years of graduation. “That has been discouraging,” the minister said.
She said the new plan would require the amendment of the NYSC Act to allow the diaspora graduands participate in the national service scheme at a convenient time. The planned amendment would also allow the diaspora corps members to set up small and medium scale businesses with a focus on job creation and attract diaspora remittances while they still get the NYSC certificate at the end of the one-year period of the scheme.
The minister of youths and sport, Sunday Dare who joined the programme virtually said there’s a larger review going on now under a committee that is looking at a review of the NYSC scheme itself.
She said Nigeria is not planning to restructure her debt, contradicting her earlier claim that the government was discussing with World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on debt restructuring for the country.
President of World Bank Group, David Malpass had said the country alongside Ghana are yet to approach the bank as well as the IMF for the framework on debt restructuring.
The minister said Nigeria remains within healthy limits, saying government remains committed to meeting its domestic obligations.
Mrs Ahmed said the federal government will continue to utilize appropriate debt management tools to streamline the costs and the risk profile and the debt portfolio including leaning more on concessionary loans, spreading out of maturities to avoid bunches.
