Date: 2011-10-17

Majority of 2000 youths engaged under Kwara States Bridge Empowerment Scheme(KWABES) have been deployed to the state's public service . Under the innovative scheme, the successful applicants who started work this week have been placed in the public and private sector following a census of employable youths last July but are on the state government's payroll. The move follows the dispatch of deployment letters to successful KWABES applicants by the state government last month.

A breakdown of the figures shows that 800 youths have been posted to the public service, 600 have been employed as teachers while 500 have been dispatched to the private sector. State-owned departments and agencies absorbed the remaining hundred.

Making the announcement in Ilorin following his return from an investment promotion trip to Italy, Kwara State governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed said the youths employed in the public would form the bulk of those to be permanently employed in the public service within a year. Governor Ahmed said the 2000 jobs represent the first phase of his administration's flagship bridge employment scheme. He said more youths would be employed in subsequent phases of the scheme before the end of the year
.
Governor Ahmed called on the youths to be worthy ambassadors of KWABES in their various places of employment stressing that they should make diligence, honesty and creativity their guiding principles, according to a statement by Senior Special Assistant to the governor on media and communications, Dr. Muyideen Akorede.
Furthermore, Governor Ahmed restated his belief that the youth are the country's most vital resource and his determination to create spaces for their meaningful engagement. Part of this resolve, he said, is the decision of his administration to make youth empowerment through job creation the core of all other policies. According to him, KWABES is an on-going program which would continuously gather data on youths in the state view a view to placing them in employment or supporting their entrepreneurial initiatives which with a view to making them job creators.

Senior Special Assistant,
(Media and Communications)
Government House, Ilorin.

17/10/2011