Ekiti to engage 1,000 youths for rural agency-banking programme

Ekiti State Government, worried by the challenges being faced by residents as a result of exodus of banks from many areas in the state, has said that it is taking financial services to all the 177 wards through agency banking.

According to the government, the intending participating banks for the proposed programme included Wema, Stanbic IBTC and First City Monument Bank (FCMB).

The state’s Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Kayode Fasae, disclosed this, yesterday, in Ado-Ekiti during an inter-ministerial meeting with relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that would play roles in the mobilisation of relevant stakeholders and participants for the programme

He intimated the relevant MDAs that over 1,000 youths would be engaged as commission agents and 200 as sole agents for job creation.

Fasae said that the ministry had delineated the state into 132 units in preparation for the commencement of the guided agency-banking programme in the state under which many unemployed youths would be empowered

The commissioner, who described agency-banking as a strategy in the financial industry that uses authorised agents to deliver financial services to customers living in the remote areas and beyond the reach of the traditional branch network, said that would-be beneficiaries should form cluster groups before they could take part in the programme.

However, Fasae also disclosed that the government would soon begin collation of data of unemployed youths, market women, artisans, okada riders, people with disabilities and other citizens between the ages of 18 and 50.

He said that every individual captured under the programme would have a unique means of identification so that they could easily be contacted whenever there are job opportunities and other empowerment opportunities.