Yakusak assumes office, promises capacity building to boost non-oil export

The new Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Dr Ezra Yakusak has promised to make capacity building one of his major priorities while spearheading the Council.

Dr Yakusak pledged shortly after his inauguration as the substantive head of the NEPC no headquarters in Abuja on Monday following the tenure expiration of Mr Olusegun Awolowo.

It would be recalled that President Buhari had in October appointed Dr Ezra, whose announcement was conveyed in a press statement by the President’s senior special assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu.

Reeling out his plans as he takes over the mantle of leadership, he said: “We at NEPC have our Act mandating us on what to do, but most importantly, no matter what you do in export promotion, if you don’t enhance the capacity of the exporters, you will still have cases of export rejection which is what is happening in Nigeria today.

“Our exporters’ goods are rejected for several reasons so what we will do is to ensure that the capacity of exporters is properly built and we will do that by ensuring that they get proper certification and enhanced training to guide them in what they are exporting.

“Secondly, the packaging is key, so we will look at the issues surrounding lack of quality packaging on the part of exporters and addressing,” the new NEPC boss said.

Speaking further, Dr Ezra stated that although his predecessor has done a lot to improve non-oil exports, the management team of the Council will work effortlessly to improve on them.
On the zero oil plan of the commission, the NEPC added that “The zero oil plan will continue, however, if there is any need for modification, we will do that because nothing is static as everything is dynamic.”