By Samuel Oyejola
The Minister for Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah said the Federal Government has approved N6.5b contract for the construction of phase II of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) and the completion of the multipurpose conference center.
The minister stated this while addressing State House correspondents shortly after the weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Enelamah described the ITF as a crucial agency of the government due to its mandate on vocational training and skills acquisition.
“The importance of this is that the ITF is one of the most important agencies of government when it comes to vocational training and skills acquisition and Abuja is a very important center of training for ITF.
“It has training facility that can train 319 people per session. With this investment in this building, it can increase that capacity to about 1,200 per session. So, it is a fairly big facility,” He said.
The minister explained that the government will increase training in automotive skills sector, ICT, Tiling, Plasters of Paris (POP), plumbing, GSM, wielding and fabrication, refrigeration, and many other skills.
He said the plan is in line with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and to diversify the economy in a way that they can bring more and more people to have skills that are needed to go to work.
“Some of the areas of interest we want to increase training include the automotive skills sector, ICT, Tiling, Plasters of Paris (POP), plumbing, GSM wielding and fabrication, refrigeration and so on.
“All these strategies are attempt to implement the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan and to diversify the economy in a way that we can bring more and more of our people to have the skills that are needed to go to work,” he said.