Total has said it spent over $10 billion to empower Nigerian youths in entrepreneurial development in the last five years. The company equally said that over 2,000 youths in the country have been given entrepreneurial development skills in different areas. General Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, Total Upstream Companies in Nigeria, Engineer Vincent Nnadi made these known in Abuja, at the graduation ceremony of participants of Business Sustenance for New Entrepreneurs Programme, sponsored by Total E & P Nigeria Ltd. According to Engr. Nnadi, the fourth largest oil and gas company in Nigeria injected the money to grow Nigeria’s economy as part of its Corporate Social Responsibilities, CSR in the country.
“In the last five years, we have invested over $10 billion into the economy of Nigeria, especially in our projects. One of the projects is edging project. We will be going into production very soon at the end of the year, “he said, adding:”We have for the first time, recorded a high level of local content in this project. So ordinarily, this project would have been done abroad but a lot of it, in fact, at the end of this project, we now know that 77 percent would have been done in Nigeria.”
According to him, “Total is consistently committed to giving back to its community and has been at the vanguard of the fight against poverty and unemployment in Nigeria. We do this through human, social and economic development programs. Capacity building is believed to be one of the ways to transform our society by providing employment opportunities for our youths and invariably reducing the tendency to resort to crime. The era of white collar jobs has become a thing of the past. It has become increasingly necessary to move from seeking office work to gainful self-employment in chosen vocations, “he added.
The training, he said, was organised by Total E & P Nigeria Ltd and facilitated by Toncia Consulting and Energy Services with the aim to improve staying power and resilience of new entrepreneurs and imbibe sustainable practices in them. He explained that “the 27 entrepreneurs who are graduating today had undergone initial livelihood skills training in paint manufacturing, inverter and solar systems production and installation, agriculture, web design and PC hardware installation, catering, hospitality and crafts among others, under the youth empowerment, capacity building and skills acquisition programs of Total Upstream companies between 2016 and 2018.”
While congratulating the 27 new entrepreneurs, Mr Nnadi enjoined all beneficiaries to utilise the opportunity offered by the program to strengthen their businesses and expand their roles as active agents of wealth creation to the benefit of their respective communities and themselves. He further said to the trained entrepreneurs:”I congratulate you as the chosen few to have been selected from the hundreds who were initially trained by us. You were enrolled for this business sustenance training because of your dedication to the initial vocation we trained you in and your judicious use of the starter packs given to you earlier by us at the end of the training exhibiting your potential to become successful entrepreneurs.
“It is believed that following this integrated training you will now be even more self-reliant, better developed in self advocacy and ability to communicate your ideas, become team players, develop ability to set goals and manage your time, and finally be better able to engage in problem solving and critical thinking skills which are all essential elements of successful entrepreneurship.” It’s a project that costs over $16 billion, so a lot of it would have been fabricated in places like Port-Harcourt, Lagos and the rest. This is a very big contribution to the economy using expertise from Nigeria.
