About 77 youths and women in Osun State have benefitted from the disbursement of soft loan by Small Scale Enterprise Department of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Osun through Micro Enterprise Enhancement Scheme (MEES LOAN) and Start Your Own Business scheme (SYOB LOAN).
The NDE director-general, Mallam Nuhu Fikpo, through the state director, Mr. Fakunle Julius, spoke at a workshop for beneficiaries in Osogbo.
He reiterated the commitment of the directorate to its mandate through the implementation of empowerment programmes aimed at generating jobs, wealth creation and capacity building for the unemployed persons despite all odds.
Fikpo said the three SYOB beneficiaries would go home with N500,000, while the 74 beneficiaries under the MEES scheme would get N20,000 totalling N2.9 milion.
The DG said having a business is not enough for success, but being equipped with management skill as a working tool is the key to achieving success and averting business failure which is a major concern of the directorate.
He urged the beneficiaries to make judicious use of the opportunity in their various career pursuits to improve their standard of living, increase productivity and make them employers of labour in the long-run.
While acknowledging federal government commitment to the empowerment programmes through relentless funding, Fikpo said Osun people should expect more of such.
