As part of efforts to prevent a setback of the scheme due to poor funding, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has mobilised thousands of the serving corps members in Kaduna state to intimate them on the need to support the quick passage of the NYSC TrustFund.
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Kaduna State Coordinator of NYSC Isa Wana said the Trust Fund bill has scaled through the second reading and awaiting a public hearing on February 24.
He explained that the Nigeria government cannot continue to engage about 350,000 youths that pass through the NYSC yearly, as the advent of COVID-19 had slimmed down the sources of revenue to the government which also affected the scheme.
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The coordinator said when the Trustfund bill is passed into law, it would be used to build business-minded individuals who would help Nigeria government to address the problem of unemployment in the country while also running the scheme’s activities via it.
Wana lamented that since the establishment of the scheme, they have always relied on the National budget to operate their programmes, but “we cannot continue to beg the government for funds, this is why the scheme came up with the idea to lobby the government to form a trust fund for the NYSC.
“The trust fund will be derived from all awarded contracts of the Federal Government which in short time the sum of money that will be cumulated will be large enough to service our needs without national budget,” Wana said.
“The trust fund will also be large enough to sponsor and expand, give grants and loans to Corps Members who have business ideas on our Saed programme and also to expand our orientation camps.
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“With the high number of Corps Members graduating annually from the scheme which surpasses 350,000, the government can not afford to give up to 35,000 jobs to them.
“With the dangers attached to unemployment, let’s us campaign for the NYSC trust fund so as to ameliorate to a very large extent the burden of unemployment of the government through our programmes aimed at equipping Corps Members with skills acquisition and other needs to be self-reliant after graduating.
“The gathering here today is to start with the Corps members who are our primary client to help us search for Trust Funds for the scheme.”
He called on the Corps members to embrace and campaign for the trust fund, noting that “It is the launchpad to future of the country.
