1.4million jobs created in 12 months –Aganga

Mr. Olusegun Aganga

The Federal Government said it had created about 1.4 mil-lion jobs within the last one year through the implementation of reforms in the areas of trade and investment. The Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga said this yesterday during the ministerial session of the 5th National Council on Trade and Investment in Minna, the Niger State capital.
Giving a breakdown of the number of jobs that were created following the activities of the five agencies under the ministry, Aganga said lending by the Bank of Industry had created 1,335,000 jobs; the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency was responsible for 31, 122 new jobs, while the Onne Oil and Gas Free Zone alone had created 30, 000 jobs.
Other Free Trade Zones under the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority are responsible for 5,120 new job openings, giving a total of 1, 401,242 jobs.
The minister also said that the ministry was currently executing matching programmes for small and medium enterprises in collaboration with the state governments to remove the bottlenecks associated with securing collateral and make it easier for SMEs to access loans to start or expand their busi-nesses.
He said: “As a result of the various reforms in the different focus areas, jobs created by the ministry’s agency in the last one year are estimated at 1,401,242 jobs as enumerated above, even though not all the jobs created are captured here.
“However, as the reforms continue, and with maximum focus on results, we hope to double this figure very soon.
“We are executing matching programmes with state governments on SMEs and deepening financing penetration, using microfinance banks; and the Bank of Industry is getting round collateral issues related with funding through cross-guarantees by members of cooperatives.
“In this regard, the value of loans approved by BOI, over the last one year, increased by 68 per cent (N77.74bn), from N114.3bn to N192.04bn. “Estimated jobs created also increased by 34 per cent (335,000) from one million to 1, 335,000 in the last one year.
“The President has also directed the Ministry of Trade and Investment, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria to work on recapitalising BOI to increase the amount of funds available to MSMEs.”