BY BANYO TEMITAYO
THE Small and medium Enterprises Development Agency is set to empower 90 beneficiaries from all the local government areas across the country.
The move is to ensure that people with brilliant ideas and skills are identified and empowered in an equitable manner.
The Director General, SMEDAN, Umaru Dikko Radar, disclosed this to journalists in Abuja.
According to him, the empowerment project will build beneficiaries’ skills and ideas into full blown businesses where people will be employed and income will be generated.
The agency selects three to four states, annually, where intellectual capacities are tested.
Following the testing, the DG said the agency would take them through intensive training, after which the first 10 would be given a substantial amount of money to operate their businesses.
Other participants also get a token, according to the SMEDAN boss.
The DG said, “SMEDAN is working on shifting the mind of the people from white collar jobs into becoming entrepreneurs and employers of labour. This programme has been taken to primary and secondary schools.
“The teachers of these schools have undergone trainings so they can teach the pupils well.”
