Lagos State Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti, in this interview, outlines measures by the state to push its job and wealth creation agenda with measurable strategies. He spoke with a group of Business Editors. SIMEON EBULU was there.
What is the role of the Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment?
The primary mandate of the ministry is to look at ways of reducing unemployment and also expanding the wealth creation outlets within the state. We are all aware of the enormous effect of unemployment. We are also aware that it is only through the expansion of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), that employment can be stimulated.
You should be aware there are different types of unemployment: cyclical, structural and sustained unemployment. We have to take a look at it to see which one actually affects us most.
Sustained unemployment is probably the one qualified for our attention because it impacts growth and development and affects the quality of lives of average Lagosians.
Our primary mandate is to create a process, whereby we create opportunities for sustainable employment, so that it would sort of have multiplier effect on development.
There are many facets to employment. There is the formal employment and others through entrepreneurship, or the SMEs. Where is your emphasis?
We need to take a look at both. I think the most important thing is the strategy of arresting unemployment.
Are you looking at arresting it through the formal and informal sectors? There is only one door. You can only go in through one door and that will lead to other doors. One generic issue that I have observed is lack of employable skills. There are jobs available. When we have jobs, are the people employable? There has to be a mindset reorientation among the unemployed, whether, formal or informal, or graduate employment or whatever-entrepreneurship.
You must have a focus. To get an idea of what we can expect, going forward, it is useful first to have a clear sense of the scope of the jobs’ deficit. So we look at the history of unemployment. One must know where one is coming from, where the problem of unemployment lies, to be able to find solutions to the issue.
If you look at it,the government tried intervening all the time. That is a wrong approach.The government doesn’t create jobs. If there is no development, there will be no jobs. There must be growth It is only through sustainable development that we will have a multiplier effect on employment. One, it will cut across all the sectors- the wholesalers and the retailers, the big businesses and the activities of small businesses. They create more jobs. Small businesses create more jobs.
The role of the ministry is that of an enabler. We are not going in and pay people to come and be trained. If we train people, where are the jobs? If after the training they don’t get employed, relative deprivation will set in. That means you take somebody up and bring him down. That has been the problem.
We must create competition among the youth. We must create opportunities. As I said, the problem was also exaggerated warranting all kinds of government interventions which couldn’t work because there were no constructive engagements with the private sector. Tax payers’ money was being used in attempts to create employment. In the process, all the people government trained, none of them have jobs.
What strategies will you employ to achieve these goals?
We are creating conditions where jobs can be created and the private sector contributing to growth. We have a lot of constraints. As I said earlier, it is not as bad, though government failed to fill in the gaps with its interventions. We have a lot of social entrepreneurs coming in to fill the gap. There are a lot of success stories. We have Andela, we have West African Vocational Education (W.A.V.E.). We have international development organisations We have a lot of the private sector. We have skilled centres.
The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has also been up to the task.
The fact that industry employers are establishing training centres, demonstrates that products from the government’s training programmes don’t meet their requirements and make their products employable. We are having a constructive engagement with all these people. We are right now working with NECA and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on skills acquisition for youths and employment creation in the state.
We are coming up with10-12 areas for collaborative engagement to create employment outlets. Not only in terms of filling the gaps, but in skills acquisition and entrepreneurship. We are also looking at employment creation outlets that we can key-into. We have had meetings with Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI).We had constructive engagement with them. We don’t wait for them to come, we go out to meet them because that is the sort of environment that we are trying to create. Also the government has to be entrepreneurial in approach. We know what they are doing .if we work with them and give that endorsement, then our youths will have more.
Why is mindset orientation so important?
I give you an example. We did engage recently with West African Vocational Education (W.A.V.E) on a two-week free training programme. In choosing the participants, we worked with the Local Government Councils because they provide a platform with a wide reach.Three hundred youths registered for the programme. 80 were shortlisted. The eighty started the programme, only 22 finished the programme. At the end of the programme, we had a review meeting and we discovered that the problem is that our youths are not ready to work. They still want to get things as in the past. This is the challenge. How are you addressing this?
This is why the mindset orientation comes in. For example, out of the 22 participants that finished, about 18 got employment on the spot. after the two weeks programme. We had one week sort of internship. The internship period was like a probation. The analogy drawn was some of them were not ready to work.
The training started from 8 am to 6 pm. They had free lunch. At the end of the day ,some were discouraged.-asking questions on how much they were going to be paid- may be N50,000. Is that why I am going through this? I am a graduate. I can’t do this and all that. So what we intend to do is to go back and give those 22 who have completed the programme commendation letters. Invite all of them and give them testimonials. That will serve as a motivation to others. So mindset orientation is really the problem. That is why we don’t try to attach numbers because of the kind of unemployment situation that we are trying to address.
We recognise that the government is not very good in creating jobs.
One thing I should let you know is that the Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode has committed N25 billion over the next four years to job creation. The money is to be judiciously expended in creating employment.
In order to achieve this, he created a N25 billion employment trust fund to cater for employment and wealth creation projects in the state. The governor inaugurated a board which is more private-sector driven. Most of the entrepreneurs will have access to the fund as long as they meet the necessary requirement, and there will be an equal opportunity for everyone, especially, budding entrepreneurs with new ideas.
The N25 billion Lagos Employment Trust Fund (ETF) will widen opportunities for self-employment, for persons with business ideas and entrepreneurial skills. It is a revolving fund. The interesting thing is that the loan will be given out at three per cent interest rate with a little management fee.
At the end of the day, it will be affordable because there is no where in the country that Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will get such lower interest rate. The other fact is that it will be accessible to entrepreneurs across the three senatorial zones and also the five divisions of the state.
The Trust Fund will come in the next 30 days. The government will commit N6.25 billion every year within the four years of this administration.
Already, they have N6.5 billion for the first year. I believe it will have a lot of impact. The state government intends to make the Trust Fund independent because of accountability.
What framework do you have to actualize your mandate of wealth creation?
We are trying to build strategic alliance with the private sector, with NECA, The Nigerian Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (NASME), Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI).We have strategic alliance to promote artisanship with Lagos State Technical and Vocational Education Board (LASTVEB).We are also establishing business incubators that will be run like tech hubs to train artisans.
We are moving away from the past. We are training people to fish and not to give them fish. We will hold their hands until they can stand alone.
We also want them to realise that they are expected to be alive to their civil responsibilities. That is what we call sustainability. They go there use the place, make some savings. Thereafter, they can move into small industrial complexes or get a small place of their own. They are assured of accommodation.
The job exchange centres is the nexus. We are updating their database here in the ministry. We are working with the various artisans associations across the state. We are going to have an artisans day very soon to showcase what we are doing. Once we have them on our database, if you want an artisan, you can get any since they are already on our database.
We expect business formation from the centres to keep growing as business people realise that the skills and expertise they need are in abundance there. At the centre, young job-seekers will be able to register and be assisted with job placement and job counselling. The centres will be housed within local councils. We are working with the state vocational education board to build the incubators. It might interest you to know that the technical students built the office of the State Vocational Education Board.
We will challenge the students to build the incubators. They will be monitored by the state technical and vocational education board. In addition, what we are going to do with the incubators is to make them accessible to technical and vocational students who want to improve their skills because the centres will have such facilities. We want to support people to explore the idea of enterprise, unlock their potential, and gain the right skills, knowledge and networks to achieve their ambitions. We will always support entrepreneurs.
