BoI, Kaduna govt enlist 4,500 youths in entrepreneurship programme

The Bank of Industry, in conjunction with Kaduna State government and Kaduna Business School, has developed a business development program geared towards training 4,500 business operators in the state.

Tagged “Kaduna Start-up Entrepreneurship Program(KADSTEP)”, the initiative is aimed at improving the capacity of some select SME operators in the state, who will benefit from various loan programmes of BoI.

Apart from benefiting from other loan windows of the bank, under the KADSTED programme, successful small business operators would also have the opportunities to leverage on the existing N1 billion matching fund.

Speaking during the signing of the deal in Kaduna on Thursday, Rasheed Olaoluwa, managing director of BoI, stated that the entrepreneurship programme would help to rev up economic activities in the state through creation of job opportunities.

“The Kaduna Start-up Entrepreneurship Program (KADSTEP) is a sustainable job creation initiative designed with entrepreneurship as the common denominator. The program is designed to run for four years in the first instance and the overreaching goal is the creation of a minimum 20,000 jobs in the intervention period through the registration and expansion of the capacities of about 3,500-4,500 businesses operating across the 23 local governments in the state,” Olaoluwa said.

According to him, the program was targeting creation of 3,500 new businesses across the 23 local governments, building capacity for entrepreneurial management among the youth, 100 percent utilisation of funds with the BoI, Bank of Agriculture,(BoA), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), creation of a minimum of 20,000 jobs and improving the internally generated revenue in the state.

In his brief remarks, Nasir El-rufai, executive governor of Kaduna State, noted that his government decided to partner with the development finance institution because of its belief that the purpose of government is to create an enabling environment suitable for job creation.

“We have sufficient confidence in our young people, in their entrepreneurship spirit, their willingness to take risks and we need to support that by removing any constraint capable of militating against the realisation of their potential,” El-rufai said.

“This is why we came up with this idea. We are grateful to the Bank of Industry for partnering with us to resolve  the issues that face our entrepreneurs which are finance and financial management.”

Harrison Edeh