The Coordinator of State Employment and Expenditure for Results programme of the Delta State Government, Mr Benson Ojoko, said the project had trained 524 youths on refuse disposal.

Ojoko, who stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Asaba, said those trained were 42 private sector participants, 82 supervisors and 400 semi-skilled and unskilled youths.

He said the capacity-building programme provided the youths with guidelines on how to do the job effectively and gave them opportunity to share work experiences.

He said the state government was collaborating with the World Bank on the project, explaining that the 524 persons were among 2.000 youths recruited across the state for the purpose.

According to him, the 524 youths will be engaged in Asaba, the state capital while the others will work in Warri, Udu, Sapele and Ughelli, beginning from November 2014.

Ojoko explained that the cities were grouped into 160 zones, with 800 households in each zone, adding that the beneficiaries would be engaged for a period of 12 months by the SEEFOR.

He said that after the 12-month period, the private refuse-collection service providers engaged by the state government would re-engage the youths as employees.

He added that SEEFOR had earlier recruited 2,000 other youths and enrolled them in skill acquisition centres across the state.

Ojoko said that the skills acquisition training will last six months, adding that beneficiaries would be provided starter packs at the end.

According to him, the aim of the project is to ensure that the beneficiaries become life-time entrepreneurs.

Source: The Trent

Picture credit: Google