By M. Peter – Jos
Sixty staff of the Industrial Training Fund, ITF have been trained in agricultural value chain in Israel and upon their return to the country, would be deployed to the six geopolitical zones to engage in greenhouse farming and grow indigenous crops for the growth of the sector.
The Director-General of the Fund, Sir Joseph Ari who disclosed this while speaking with journalists on Monday in Jos, the Plateau State capital on the ITF reviewed vision tagged: Strategies for Mandate Actualization 2020 – 2024, noted that all that is needed to revitalize the nation is innovative skills in all spheres of the economy.
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Ari said despite the challenges of the COVID-19 disease, the ITF is committed to carrying out its mandate as in the midst of challenges, new opportunities are arising especially in the area of ICT and innovative skills.
He decried the absence of Nigeria in the World Skills Summit saying it is high time the nation get registered to enable the country have access to new trends in creative knowledge which will enable the country compete with other nations in key skills and infrastructural development.
Speaking on some of the agenda for implementation in the second phase of the plan, Ari mentioned the discovery of companies stating, “You will agree with me that COVID-19 has brought a new phrase known as the new normal. One of the setbacks of COVID-19 is that some industries, some factories have closed down, when they close, they are job loses but it is also known that period of challenges are also period of opportunities. You will find out that new companies will also come up especially in the ICT and in some self developing abilities.
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“We are in the era of ideas where creativity takes centre stage, the Act that established ITF spells out that every employer of labour with five staff and more is liable to contribute one percent of the staff annual payroll into the coffers of ITF. It is a law and that even if you don’t have up to five members of the workforce, you may be a one man business but if your turnover is up to N50 million per annum, you are liable to contribute so some of these companies that are likely to spring up as the result of the challenges of COVID-19 may fall under this category and this means discovering them.”
On funding windows, Ari maintained ITF is in collaboration with over 40 national and international organizations which would ensure skilled trainings to Nigerians to enable them contribute meaningfully to the economy even as he stressed some of the Fund’s activities like the e-learning studio would be commercialized to raise some funds for the implementation of the stated plans.
