Date: 2021-11-04

The National Directorate of Employment (NDE), on Wednesday, commenced a two-day training programme for 540 beneficiaries of the Expanded Public Works (EPW) in Ilorin, Kwara State.

The trainees comprised of those who have received their three months' allowance of N60,000 each.

Speaking at the event, director-general of NDE, Abubakar Fikpo, said those selected for the programme tagged "Advanced Business Training" had collected their three-month stipends.

Represented by Mr. Saheed Salau from the Special Public Works (SPW) of the directorate, Fikpo said that 180 persons from each of the three senatorial districts of the state were benefiting from the programme.

He explained that: "In any mass payment, there is what we call failed payment. Some of the beneficiaries' payment has failed; perhaps, because of one thing or the other. Some of the failed payments might be connected with differentials in the names used in the BVN and the names used during registration.

"Those are the people that have problems of nonpayment. Those are the people the Minister of state for Labour, Festus Keyamo (SAN) was referring to. Already, we are addressing the problem. As soon as any of the affected beneficiaries are cleared, they will receive alert of payment. All of them will get their money. And that is why we are giving them this training."

Also speaking, the state coordinator of NDE, Engr Abba Timothy, said that: "The essence of the training is basically to follow up the training we did for the beneficiaries of the SPW some months back in Kwara state. They had training on basic business training then, but this is the advanced of the training. We want to know what impact the former training had on then and what will be the impact of the current one."

He urged the beneficiaries to take advantage of the training to improve on their businesses.