The Coordinator of the National Youth Service Corps in Osun State, Mr. Emmanuel Attah, has said the Federal Government has made plans for corps members with good business ideas to get loans of between N200,000 and N2 million to start their businesses after the service year.
Attah stated that the loan, which would be given in collaboration with the Bank of Industry, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, would be made available to corps members after they might have undergone skill acquisition and entrepreneurial development programmes.
Attah stated, “Interested corps members, who have undergone the SAED programme, will be given loans of between N200,000 and N2m after the service year. The business proposal will determine how much will be given to each applicant.
“The loan will be interest-free and the NYSC discharge certificates of interested corps members, who apply for the loans, will be used as the collateral. The discharge certificates will be subsequently returned to them after repayment of the loan, which has no time bound.
“The SAED programme and supporting loan were put in place after the NYSC observed that youths, after the service year, always end up unemployed and roaming the streets looking for non-existing white collar jobs.
“The skill acquisition programme will empower corps members after the service year to be self-employed and also be employers of labour. This will also reduce their involvement in criminal activities.”
The Head of BoI in Osun State, Mr. Emmanuel Ojoowuro, said the loans that would be given to the corps members would be in form of business items financing for the applicants.
Ojoowuro explained that items and materials would be provided to the business of individual corps members and that the loan could be up to N2 million or as low as N200,000, depending on the nature of the business to be established.
The BoI official said the SAED and the start-up loans given to corps members had been very successful with many positive developments recorded in the last three years.