ICT Industry start-ups to access incentives to attain 2018 jobs creation target

Start-up companies in the Information Communication and Technology (ICT) Industry will soon benefit from a planned incentive package from the federal government to realise the three million jobs target by 2018.

The companies will be open to incentives like tax holidays and rebates for qualifying tech start-ups so that they can employ more people and grow the entrepreneurial sector of the economy.

Adebayo Shittu, Minister of Communication and Afolabi Imoukhuede, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation/Youth Employment; Office of the Vice President, disclosed this during the visit of the Minister to the Yaba Technology Ecosystem Hubs in Lagos recently.

Shittu while speaking after accessing facilities like the Co-Creation Hub, iDea Hub, among others, the expressed satisfaction at the infrastructures on the ground noting that “We want to replicate what is happening here in other parts of the country in partnership with key stakeholders. We are going to start in Ibadan and Katsina states in the next three month as both the Governors have agreed to provide facilities for the establishment of these hubs”.

Afolabi Imoukhuede, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation/Youth Employment added that the Government will consider tax holidays and rebates for qualifying tech start-ups so that they can employ more people and grow the entrepreneurial sector of the economy.

“We are working on the details to ensure that we get it right. We have a million jobs to be created this year and we have a target to create three million jobs over the next three years-2016-19. What is keen for me as the SSA on Job Creation is for us to be able to look at which sectors we can create jobs, and ICT, for us is a key area for job creations. For two reasons- you can create jobs within the sector, and you can use ICT as an enabler to also create a lot of jobs. That is why we are focusing on ICT and the digital world for jobs creation; it is therefore important that we visit places like Co-Creation, where you can achieve an organic growth.”

Bosun Tijani, CEO, Co-Creation Hub, in his presentation on ‘The Yaba Technology Ecosystem –How we got here and where we ‘d like to go,’ noted that there is no nation on earth today that can prosper without using technology. According to him, beyond the incentives, government should patronize the companies in the sector by giving them business.

“For instance in the last election, we built a website  that  was used to encourage people on how to vote, when to vote ; we also built another site for ID cards registration- it was so good that INEC adopted it. Somebody paid for that work; that is the kind of collaborations we want. 60 percent of what we do here is building other peoples businesses by using our creativity and knowhow to make society better,” he said.

KELECHI EWUZIE