The House of Representatives on Tuesday asked the Industrial Training Fund ITF to quickly work towards coordination of all trainings undertaken by workers at all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies MDAs of the federal government or the agency ‘ll cease to exist.
Chairman of the House Ad-hoc Committee on Overlapping Functions of Government Agencies Hon.Victor Mela gave the directive to the Director-General DG ITF Sir Joseph Ari when he appeared before the panel to explain the functions and the accomplishments of the ITF since its inception.
The lawmker said that the House Committee has the mandate of the National Assembly to ensure that any government agency that could not justify its existence in terms of functions should be merged with any other one with similar functions.
He stated that the House is worried about the frequency of Peeters from the President addressed to the parliament soliciting for funds on the running of some of these federal government agencies.
While grilling the DG on the matter, he Siad that the agency should be able to Coordinate trainings in all the MDAs or the agency would be scrapped because of the huge funds expended by others on trainings
He said: “the Individual Training Fund if it cannot coordinate trainings in all MDAs should be merged. If merger will bring efficiency into these agencies, this is what this committee will do”.
A member of the House panel Hon. Shettima Ali (Yobe, APC) however commended the ITF DG for all the trainings conducted for youths across the country saying it had reduced unemployment drastically.
In his response, the DG said that the agency had trained over 1000 Nigerian as professionals in various fileds in the nation’s economy with a view to filling the skills gap in formal and informal sectors.
He said that there is a recommendation by the Steve Oronsanye Committee on the rationalization of government agencies for the agency be a stand alone establishment.
He also said that ITF has been a self funding agency from its inception till date adding that it had consistently provided Internally Generated Revenue IGR to the federal government coffers.
The House Committee also grilled and discharged the Director-General Nigeria Centre for Disease Control NCDC Dr.Ifedayo Adetifa on the functions and mandate of the agency in the health sector.
The House panel however discharged the DG for failing to present requested documents on the issue saying that he should liase with the Committee’s secretariat and pick a new date for re-appearance.
