CBN to offer youth corpers seven year loans at the end of the service year to enable then start businesses

CENTRAL Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele has announced radical plans to offer seven year loans to National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members to start small and medium scale businesses as part of a plan to encourage entrepreneurs.

Nigerian youths have to undergo a compulsory one year service upon the completing of their courses at tertiary institutions. However, many of them find it difficult to find jobs afterwards as the private sector job market is not big enough and the civil service can only take on so many new entrants.

In an attempt to address the situation, Mr Emefiele , noted that the loan was conceived out of the need to reduce unemployment rate in the country. He revealed this in Abuja while receiving the NYSC director-general, Brigadier Shuaibu Ibrahim, pointing out that corpers should attend the bank’s entrepreneurship training centres to acquire skills in various vocational areas for economic survival at the end of their national service instead of waiting for white-collar jobs.

He added that upon completion of their training, the loans would be given to corps members to provide support for acquiring working tools and rent of business offices or workshops. He explained that upon completion of training, beneficiaries would get the cumulative value which represents a loan that would be repaid within seven years with a two-year moratorium.

A CBN spokesman said: , “The Central Bank of Nigeria has expressed willingness to provide further opportunities of self-employment for corps members through its skill acquisition training. The CBN governor recalled that an earlier programme, the Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme was  launched by the bank in 2016 and served as a springboard for the empowerment of corps members and other youths for self-employment and wealth creation.

“Mr Emefiele assured the NYSC director-general that the CBN National Microfinance Bank would also support interested corps members in business financing. He advocated the patronage of the Nigerian textile industry, which he described, as the largest employer of labour in the country in the 1990s.”

Brigadier Ibrahim requested the CBN’s support for the provision of more zonal skills acquisition centres and modern equipment for the NYSC farms located in various parts of the country. He added that the visit was to enhance more robust collaboration with the bank in the area of empowerment of corps entrepreneurs.