Governor Rauf Aregbesola has stated that with the standard infrastructure put in place by his administration, investment will surely thrive in the state.
Aregbesola said this known at a One-day enlightenment seminar on “Stimulating Effective Shipment of Non-oil Export Products” organized by Nigerian Shippers Council, South West Zonal Coordinating Office.
 
 
 
Aregbesola who was represented by the Special Adviser on Wealth Creation, Mr. Adetoyese Ademola, gave accolades to the organizers for identifying the state as a place of economic development, adding that the capacity of Nigerian Shippers Council as one of the leading economic regulator of Nigeria’s port sector cannot be overemphasised.
At the enlightenment seminar for stakeholders held at White Plain Suites and Towers in Osogbo, the State capital, presentations as regard the theme were revealed in line with part of the mandate of Nigerian Shippers Council.
In his presentation titled “Stimulating Effective Shipment of Non-Oil Export Products in the State of Osun”, the Commissioner, Ministry of Commerce, Industries and Cooperatives, Mr. Jayeoba Alagbada stated that the state government under the leadership of
Aregbesola has laid solid foundation for investors to invest in the state through projects and array of Agricultural produce as well as solid Minerals.
Alagbada stated that the foundations are necessary precursors to make the state a major player in the national drive to promote Non-Oil Export.
Alagbada described Aregbesola as a Governor with foresight, Alagbada added that one of the Governor’s major projects at inception of his tenure was construction of Free Trade Zone in the state which comprises Importers/Exporters, Shippers Associations, Commodities Association, Chambers of Commerce, Manufacturer Association of Nigeria, among others.
The Director, Inland Transport Services Department of Nigerian Shippers Council, Lagos, Mr. Akintunde Makinde in his presentation tagged: “Role of Nigerian Shippers Council in Trade Facilitation” affirmed that the role of the association is to provide protective platform for stakeholders in import and export business nationally and internationally.
Makinde who was represented by Mr. Akintola Kola, maintained that actualization of objectives of the Federal Government’s Executive Order on the ease of doing business in Nigeria through the councils trade facilitation and regulation must be embraced by stakeholders at all levels.
Also in his presentation on Packaging of Agricultural Products by the Regional Coordinator, Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC, Mr. Babatunde Faleke averred that packaging must be protected and advertised, as well as trendy and innovative.
Faleke noted that agricultural products in Nigeria with improved packaging have a place in the international market.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Zonal Coordinator, Nigerian Shippers Council, South-West Coordinating Office, Mr. Olurotimi Anifowose appreciated Governor Aregbesola and stakeholders for their support of the council in the state through the Ministry of Commerce, Industries and Cooperatives.
He also appealed for appropriate recognition to the Shippers Council which is not a non-governmental organization for good service delivery, while pledging that the Nigerian Shippers Council will not fail in its function as one of the key boosters of Nigeria’s economy.

The entire members of staff of the Hospitals Management Board (HMB) have been urged to treat people with dignity, human face and the fear of God, while rendering their services.
This admonition was given by the new Permanent Secretary, Hospitals Management Board, Mr. Dayo Olaluwoye, while addressing the staff of the Board in an inaugural meeting held at the premises of the agency.
The Permanent Secretary told the staff that, it is incumbent on them to have compassion for their counterparts in the out stations hence
they should render services to them unconditionally.
Mr. Olaluwoye reminded the staff that God recognizes their services to humanity and asked them to give their best and leave the rest to God
for their rewards.
Furthermore, the Permanent Secretary informed the workers that he believed so much in treating people with fairness, justice and merit.
According to Mr. Olaluwoye, his office is widely open at all times for reasonable and genuine cases to all categories of staff and are
free to walk in with their complaints.

The State of Osun has consistently maintained her leading position as a centre of learning to other states in Nigeria and the
international community.

 
The State Programme Facilitator, Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme (O-MEALS) , Mrs Olubunmi Ayoola made this remark at a training programme organised for health teachers across the twelve centres in the State.
Mrs Ayoola who commended the Governor of the State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola for rebranding O-MEALS in the State that has attracted
other states and the international communities, said deworming of school pupils has helped in both physical and intellectual
development.

The Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has tasked Nigerians to imbibe the culture of taxation.
According to him, for a developing country like Nigeria to confront boldly the socio-economic and political challenges, taxation must be taken seriously.
 

 
 
He said all the responsible, civilised and advanced countries remain successful because they generate their resources from taxes collected from the populace, while under-developed and developing countries remain poor and backward because of their poor taxation culture.
Governor Aregbesola made the statement while addressing leaders and members of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) Osogbo Branch, during the ceremonial presentation of the 2017 Group Dynamics Cup Trophy won by the Osogbo NSE.
Aregbesola explained that the emerging economic realities remained the signal to the fact that no nation can survive without huge revenue from taxation, adding that global economic reality is compelling seriousness on the need for government and the people of any country that desire development to prioritise taxation as the basic way for revenue generation.
He said, “It is unfortunate that most professionals in our state do not take the issue of taxes seriously. That is why I want to appeal to the leaders of the NSE and other professionals bodies in the state to rally round their members to correctly and appropriately assess themselves so as to pay appropriate taxes to government.
“Before the military interregnum in Nigeria, taxation was a serious civic obligation and responsibility of every citizen and as a matter of fact, the liberty of the citizens was defined and determined by how citizens fulfilled their tax obligations.
“At the time, negligence in tax obligation had a citizen’s liberty circumscribed. But the military during its interregnum with the need for it to forcibly acquire legitimacy from the people, overlooked that very critical factor in modern society.
“The reason adults worked then was to serve themselves and serve the government because there was no other way government could get money outside the taxes paid by all entities, both human and corporate in their domain”.
“It is not a doubt that today, all developed nations in the world have one characteristic of sole means of revenue generation from taxes paid by their citizens.
“The advanced nations of the world generate much more of their resources from the taxes paid by their citizens and that is the only way for responsible, civilised and consequently advanced nations to generate their revenues.
“But backward, under-developed and primitive societies depend on natural resources that, in most cases, they do not even know where such resources came from. Their belief was, once the natural resource is bringing the proceeds to them, they don’t want to know how effective their own assessment of the proceeds is.
“We just found that we all depend on rent to live our lives and any nation that depends on such will just be living a mere existence.
“So, we must all come to the need to understand the essence of taxation in ensuring good governance. It is time for citizens of the third world particularly African countries to rise to the challenges of poor taxation culture”, Aregbesola stated.

The successes recorded by the government of the State of Osun on the operations of Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO) have drawn the attention of the Ondo State government, which was impressed enough to send a team to Osun in order to understudy the programme.
YESSO which is an offshoot of the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) is a tripartite agreement among the World Bank, the Federal Government of Nigeria and participating states.
The programme was launched in September 2013 with the overall objective to increase access of the poor to youth employment opportunities, social services and strengthen the safety net system.
Addressing the Ondo delegates in Osogbo on Wednesday, the State Coordinator, Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO), Mr. Femi Ifaturoti said that Governor Rauf Aregbesola conceived the OYES idea as a social intervention programme to reduce the unemployment rate among the youths in the state.
The Coordinator declared that OYES, borne out of passion and vision has become a reality, commending the Ondo State Team for choosing Osun to learn from and promised them all necessary supports during the period of their assignment in the state.
He noted that there are similarities between the leaders of Osun and Ondo states in terms of development.
According to him “it is the vision and passion of Ogbeni Aregbesola to put this OYES scheme in place in Osun and we set up this scheme to tackle the problems of unemployment”.
“For the first time in the history of Nigeria, Osun government employed 20,000 youths at a go to reduce unemployment. There are other schemes which have addressed the need of those that are not educated and the vulnerable people in the state”.
In her response, the head of the Ondo State delegation, Mrs. Bunmi Ademosu, who is the Special Adviser to the Ondo State Governor on Inter-governmental Affairs, said the purpose of the tour to Osun was to study the developmental programmes that encourage the youths.
According to her, “We are here to share from the State of Osun experience and to know what the state of the virtuous has been doing to tackle unemployment among youths”.
She said that Osun and Ondo states share the same vision in dealing with youth unemployment, as everybody, according to her, should have the passion and confidence to move the country forward for better.
“With this Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) programme in place, the idle hands will get busy with something worthy”, she added.
In his presentation, the leader of the Osun Project Implementation Unit, Mr. Olugbenga Odulaja emphasised the need to develop youths and engage them for better goals.
In his goodwill message, the OYES Commandante, Col. Eniibukun Oyewole (rtd) noted that OYES is a premier project in Osun which 42,000 youths has passed through to better the lots of the people across the state.
He said, “Osun has a low-crime rate, because the scheme has taken many youths off the streets who now work on building a sustainable society”.
He appreciated the effort of the present administration in the state for the supports given to the programme.

The Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO) which is a tripartite agreement among the World Bank, the Federal Government of Nigeria and participating states was launched in September 2013 with the overall objective to increase access of the poor to youth employment opportunities, social services and strengthen safety net system.
YESSO which is an offshoot of the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (O-YES) was designed to achieve the same feat as OYES which saw unemployment rate plummeting from 12 per cent to 3 per cent in the State of Osun in the year 2010 (Source: National Bureau of Statistics, 2010).
In other words, YESSO was designed to strengthen the safety nets programme through coordination, effective targeting and monitoring and evaluation. Some of the merits of
YESSO are the establishment of Single Register (SR) of poor and vulnerable households which is now building block of the Federal Government Cash Transfer programme, provision of labour intensive work (Public Workfare), skills training for unemployed youths (Skills for Job) and targeted grant transfer in the North East region of Nigeria.
The Osun-YESSO was institutionalized with the State Operation Coordinating Unit (SOCU) as the institution responsible for coordination, management and oversight of social safety nets.
It does these by developing a database of poor and vulnerable households for selection into safety nets interventions that can support their needs. Three important lessons can be learned from the YESSO model of curbing unemployment. First, is the targeting method which demonstrates the important roles communities can play towards the identification of poor and vulnerable households.
Second, it is the selection criteria which limits the error of inclusion and exclusion. Lastly is the output of the Single Register (SR).
Targeting
The failure of previous interventions on youth empowerment programmes to reach the poor and vulnerable groups in the society has shifted the attention towards Community Based Targeting (CBT).
The CBT process involves geographical targeting, community gathering, data collection and analysis, and validation of list of identified households at the community level.
The key distinction of this approach is the substantial role of the community in the overall selection of the beneficiaries, albeit following some selection criteria.
Selection Criteria
The target groups are poor and vulnerable youths within the identified households that will either participate in the labour intensive work (PWF) or skill matching training programme (Skills for Job). The following conditions applied: (a) they have to be between 18 and 35 years old; (b) they have to be in a community identified as poor; (c) they have to be unemployed.
Numbers enrolled
By December 2016 till date, a total of 7,000 households have received direct cash transfer on monthly basis. Also, a total of number 1,000 of youths between ages 18 and 35 have been effectively enrolled in labour intensive work and receive monthly stipends. These numbers increase per phase of CBT which is already at the fourth phase.
Other states adopting similar model will experience the same dramatic improvement in their unemployment numbers.