From Abuja, Kenneth Udeh
A Bill seeking to place unemployed graduates in the country on a Monthly stipend while undergoing skill acquisition training by the Federal Government has passed first reading at the Senate.
The bill sponsored by Senator Tony Nwoye ( Anambra North ) seeks to amend the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) ACT inorder to also ensure that Graduates acquire new skills immediately after the Mandatory one year National youth service.
Section 2 of the Principal Act is to be amended by introducing new subsections (d)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv) and amendment of Section2(d) (v) which shall read thus:by introducing new Sub sections (i), (ii),(iii), (iv) and (v) (d)Implement any other policy as may be laid from time to time, by the board established under section 3 of the Act.
When amended and signed into the law the NDE Act will provide for the carrying out of research and development of appropriate data of all the unemployed graduates annually.
As sighted in the explanatory memorandum the bill aims to amend sections 2 and 4 of the NDE ACT CAP No 28 Laws of the Federation 2004.
The proposed amendment of section 2 states that; “the unemployed graduates while undergoing skill acquisition shall be paid an acceptable monthly stipend by the Directorate” and that “The Agency shall Liaise with other relevant Government agencies to place unemployed graduates in skills acquisition centers in all the States of the Federation for the purpose of realizing subsection (i).
The section 2 Amendment according to Tony Nwoye shall require the NDE to assist those who acquire new skills to practice the new skills they acquired through appropriate counseling and device appropriate strategies to track under-graduates upon graduation, during and after National Youth Service for proper guidance to prevent the abuse of the scheme.
Additionally,Section 4 of the Principal Act is amended by deleting the word“Minister” and substituting it with the word “Board”.
Nwoye also explained that the primary objective of these amendments proposed in the bill is to facilitate and tackle the increasing unemployment in the country, so as to ward off, the ugly consequences usually associated with social disequilibrium such as insecurity and to enable fresh graduates learn vocational skills instead of them all waiting for government employment.
Tony’s bill, which was the second business of the day, was granted first reading shortly after it was introduced to the Senate by the Leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele.
Afterwhich Clerk of the Senate , Chinedu Akubueze read the short title of the bill and President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio ratified the first reading of the bill.