The Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi has identified hunger and poverty as some of the factors fuelling the rate of crimes in the country.
He however noted that empowerment of the poor would help reduce the rate of poverty and crime.
Amaechi disclosed this in Daura, Katsina State during the flag-off ceremony of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) skill acquisition training and empowerment of 1000 youths and women in the State.
One thousand beneficiaries were given cash, sewing machine, computers and trained in various skills as part of measures to reduce the unemployment rate and support the poor
The Minister said: “I thank the ministry of labour for this empowerment programme and I hope it gets to the right people, the poor people. I also hope they are trained and hope they can utilise the training.
“Even though it (empowerment programme) won’t eradicate poverty, let it reduce it because the more poverty we reduce, the less the crime.
“If everybody can feed, you will have very few persons stealing or turning themselves into banditry.”
The Minister of State Labour and Employment and the Chairman NDE board, Festus Keyamo, said the empowerment programme would be continuous.
Kayamo said: “We are here for the poor citizens of Katsina state. This is the beginning of our intervention. 1000 citizens of Katsina state will benefit from so many programmes of President Muhammadu Buhari
“We all know that your son, the president is pro-poor president and almost all his programmes are for the poor masses of this country.
“We have various items for those who want to start small trade, those who want to go into small businesses and others.
“Some will be given N100,000-N200,000 to start a business, while some will be given sewing machines, a thousand of them will benefit and we will keep coming back.”
Giving a breakdown of some empowerment programmes, the Director-General of NDE, Abubakar Fikpo said: “The employment creation programmes we are implementing in Katsina State and indeed some others across the country have been structured to cater to the diverse needs of the unskilled and unemployed.
“Consequent to this event, 1000 brand new small scale businesses will be injected into the economy of the state.”
The programmes include: “Rural employment programme where 50 participants benefited from small stock (goat) production training and empowerment using the revolving model of empowerment at a loan cost of N150,000 per beneficiary.
“45 benefited from the special graduate attachment programme with a monthly stipend of N20,000 for three months.
“100 women were trained and empowered in oriental carpet making at N100,000 each, while 465 benefited from the micro enhancement enterprise scheme with N20,000 each.”
