Abuja, In order to help build a knowledge based economy for Nigeria, the leadership in public and private sectors have been urged to boost the skill levels of the workforce, as a survey conducted by the Centre for Management Development, recently, revealed a number of skills gap in ICT.

Speaking during an interview with NAN, in Abuja, the nation’s federal capital, Dr Kabir Usman said:“We are looking at knowledge base economy. You cannot have knowledge base economy unless you develop the skills of your workforce.to help contribute positively to the economy.

Usman said if the workers were given extraordinary skills required in the sectors, it would enhance performance and productivity toward achieving Federal Government’s Transformation Agenda.

“We are looking at knowledge base economy. You cannot have knowledge base economy unless you develop the skills of your workforce.

“We provide training programmes on skills and attitude to work to serve as ingredient to enhance productivity and performance of workforce.

“This is necessary so that they can make their contributions to the success of the government’s transformation agenda,’’ Usman said.

He said that a survey conducted recently by CMD revealed quite a number of skill gaps in areas of Information Communication Technology (ICT), communication skills and others.

“Typical example where we have shortcoming is in the area of ICT. There is significant number of staff that need to improve their skills in terms of ICT.

“We have also discovered that many people have no communication skills to communicate effectively, even issues about writing a proposal and accessing funding. All these required extraordinary skills,’’ the director-general said.

He recalled that in 2005, the National Centre for Economic Management and Administration was merged together with CMD to discharge dual responsibilities.

“It means that we have to make our own contribution in area of human capital development and make contribution in terms of economy.

“Typical example where we made the stride in terms of transformation agenda is in area of managerial capacity for national development with the particular reference to human capital.

“We have variety of training programmes, targeting policies makers, lawmakers and decision makers across the country both at local, state and federal government levels’’.