Republic of South Africa President Jacob Zuma visited the Federal Republic of Nigeria on April 16, 2013. He is photographed with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
NIGERIA EXPANDS TAC SCHEME TO OTHER AFRICAN, CARIBBEAN, PACIFIC COUNTRIES
Monday, 11 November 2013 21:01 Written by From Niyi Bello (Akure) and Kanayo Umeh (Abuja)
Nigerian Guardian
ENCOURAGED by the success recorded by the pilot Artisan Support Programme (ASP) in Namibia by the Directorate of Technical Aid Corps (TAC), the Federal Government has expanded the scheme to include other African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
Director General of the TAC, Dr. Pius Osunyikanmi, who disclosed this to The Guardian in Akure Monday, said President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the inclusion of skilled artisans into the nation’s main personnel support initiative for countries that lacked the necessary human resource base for socio-economic development.
Under the pilot scheme, which was introduced to experiment the inclusion of artisans in the TAC programme, 60 Nigerian skilled personnel with expertise in plumbing, carpentry, automobile mechanic, fashion designing and other vocations, were deployed to the South African country to impart knowledge of their skills to Namibian youths.
The ASP, according to Osunyikanmi, was introduced to expand the scope of the operations of the corps, which was established in 1987 to provide a platform of personnel support by Nigeria, as a medium power economy, to needy ACP countries.
Osunyikanmi said the pilot scheme was so successful that after conferring awards on some of the Nigerian participants who excelled in the implementation of the two-year programme, Windhoek officially requested for its extension.
Hundreds of Namibian youths were said to have benefited from the scheme in which Nigerian artisans, who were recruited, deployed and paid by the Nigerian government, engaged in several projects to build the economy of the host country and made to teach apprentices attached to them.
The TAC DG said his office has been receiving applications from countries, which wish to participate in the scheme having seen the success of the Namibian experiment and that “with the approval of the President, we are now poised to commence a recruitment exercise across the country.
“To achieve this, we have already placed advertisements in major Nigerian newspapers for not only lecturers, lawyers, medical doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers and other professionals, but also artisans that are experts in plumbing, construction and roofing, welding, vehicle mechanics and so on.”
Also, the Federal Government has donated Crop Residue Crushing Machines (CRCM) to 10 farmers’ cooperative societies in Kaduna State to enable them improve on their economic and social activities.
Coordinating Minister of Science and Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, while speaking at the commissioning of a newly innovated machine by the National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI) at the palace of Emir of Zazzau, His Royal Highness, Alhaji Shehu Idris, noted that the Federal Government, under the current administration, would continue to improve on technological development of the country.
“The mandates of parastatals in the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology are geared towards the channeling of our science and technology to economic development by a comprehensive approach to the determination of technology programmes and their implementation, taking into account domestic productions in agriculture, environment, health, food security, industrial manufacturing, biotechnology, ICTs and space exploration”, she said.
The minister, who was represented by Director of Technical Acquisition and Assessment in in the ministry, Dr. Adeyemi Talabi, however, informed that the CRCM “shall continue to be property of the Federal Government while the beneficiaries will only be custodians that will be updating NBTI on its performance to enable technology upgrade in future models.”
Director General of NBTI, Dr. Mohammed Jibrin, explained that the overall objective of developing the CRCM is for use by herdsmen and farmers to provide feed for animals and other herbivorous animals.
According to him, herdsmen in Nigeria do not have the culture of providing adequate feed for their animals in an enclosed area; rather, they wander about seeking for their feeds.
While commissioning the machines, Governor Muktar Yero of Kaduna State, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry in the state, Alhaji Ahmed Musa, extolled the NBTI boss for innovating what he termed a ‘problem-solving mechanism to foster peaceful and secure societal life’.
“I, therefore, urge the benefiting farmers’ cooperative societies to make utmost use of the machine to achieve the immense benefits. I also urge all major farmers in the state to purchase this machine to diversify the sources of their income from their various farm produce, and to boost the economy of Kaduna State and the entire country”, he added.
The emir expressed hope that the machines will not only improve the welfare of the farmers but will also serve as veritable tool to enhance peaceful coexistence of the people.
The cooperative societies have 333 members. Some of them are: Galma (Nagarta) farmers; Kinkiba (Soma Danuwanka); Markarifi Zabura maize farmers, among others
“Those things we normally leave at our farm as wastages are going to be used now for generating money. It will be beneficial for us to increase our income. We are going to make best use of these machines and I hope it will also have impact on other famers outside the Zazzau emirate”, one of the beneficiaries, Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed, said.
No comments:
Post a Comment