…to create jobs for 10,000 N’Delta youths, women, others
Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has launched the Holistic Opportunity Projects of Engagement, christened ‘Project Hope.
The Project Hope will create jobs for about 10,000 indigent youths, women and entrepreneurs in the Niger Delta.
NNPC’s Managing Director, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, made the disclosure the launch of the project at the commission’s headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on Wednesday.
He said: “Today marks a new dawn for youths of the Niger Delta with the launch of Project Hope that seeks to turnaround NDDC’s Youth Development and Empowerment Programme.
“We decided to launch this project considering that over the years NDDC has invested lots of funds to impact on the lives of youths that cannot be accounted for,” he added.
Project aims to provide database that will streamline NDDC programmes
According to him, “Project Hope aims to provide a database that will streamline our programmes into one platform to engage youths, women and entrepreneurs of the region.
“So, this project will create 10,000 jobs with at least 1,000 jobs created in each of the nine Niger States in the areas of agro-allied and Information Technology, among others.”
Ogbuku noted that once the youths were registered on the database, the platform would enable the commission to know their interests and needs.
He said: “To this end, we will no longer go about nominating people to benefit from our training programmes as we will only pick from the database.
“For example, if we want to train welders, then we will go to the database to pick those whose interest are welding. So, nobody needs to know anybody to benefit.
Database will eliminate political interest in nominations
“The database will eliminate political interest in the area of nominations while giving every youth equal opportunity to obtain support from the NDDC and government.
“Also, this programme will help eliminate the past practice of youths benefitting in our programmes multiple times. But now, once you’ve been engaged, it will be recorded in our database,” he said.
He advised NDDC vendors, who always bring arbitrary empowerment programmes and proposals to the commission to key into Project Hope.
