FUNCTIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF GOVERNMENT SUPPORT AGENCIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENTERPRENUERSHIP IN ENUGU STATE. (A CASE STUDY OF NATIONAL DIRECTORATE OF EMPLOYMENT (N.D.E)

ABSTRACT
Governments have set up agencies that are specifically charged with training the people, providing funds and other services for the promotion and development of entrepreneurship.
This project work focused on the functions and achievement of government support agencies in the development of entrepreneurship in Enugu State with special reference to the national directorate of employment (NDE).
It is the aim of this research to find out the following, the functions of the government support agencies especially NDE whether the various programmes of the NDE has helped to achieve her mandates, whether the growth in the number of small business or entrepreneurial organization can be attributed to the established of the government support agency if there is anything that makes the achievement of the NDE mandate difficult and to disclose how far the agency have helped those who are unemployed within the state to gain employment.
The researcher critically looked at some salient literary work that appear to have some theoretical relevance to the research work and indicated their strength and weakness and how they impinge on this work.
While conducting this study, the researcher made use of data from both primary and secondary sources.
The areas of the study is Enugu state where as the population size and sample size are 1125 and 295 respectively.
The three hypothesis formulated were tested using the chi-square 6c2) statistical formula and it was discovered among other that the establishment of the NDE has a positive effect impact on entrepreneurship development in Enugu State.
Finally, one of the major findings was that the government does not provide enough find for the NDE programmes to enhance efficient and effective running of the government support agency.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Entrepreneurship started when people began to produce more products than they required, as such they had to exchange these surplus with others who also wanted to dispose off their surplus. By this way, producers came to realize that they can concentrated in their areas of production to produce more and then exchange with what they needed. Therefore, through this exchange of products, entrepreneurship started.
According to Schumpeter (1961) Entrepreneurship means doing new things or doing things that are already being done in a new way.

Nnenna B.Ani (1999) described entrepreneurship as a creative and innovative response to the environment such responses can take place in any field of social endavour, for instance, in business industry, agriculture, education, social work and the like.
An entrepreneur is different from a manager who only plans organizes and controls a business idea after it has been successfully initiated by the entrepreneur”Lawal A.A Et Al (1998), According to Ani Nnnenna B. (1999) a typically Nigeria entrepreneur is self made man who ,might be said to have strong will to succeed, he might engage the services of others like friends, mates, in laws etc to help him in his work or production through this way Nigerians in the olden days were engaged in entrepreneurship”. Early entrepreneurship characterized with production or manufacturing in which case the producer most often started with a small capital, most of it from his own savings. Early entrepreneurship started with trade by barter even before the advent of any form of money.
In Nigerian modern entrepreneurship started with the coming of the Colonial masters, who brought in their wears and made Nigerians their middlemen. Most of the modern entrepreneur were engaged in retail trade or sole proprietorship.

One of the major factors that has in many ways discouraged the flow of entrepreneurship development in this country is the value system brought about by formal education. For many decades formal education has been the preserve of the privilege. With formal education, people had the opportunity of being employed in civil service, because in those days the economy was large enough to absorb into the prestigious occupation all Nigerians with some form of formal education. The value system discouraged entrepreneurship in Nigeria for the colonial masters to solve their goods, because if Nigerians continue to be enterprising, they would not have had market for their goods. as such, the system made Nigerians to be depends on the colonial masters to supply her with the needed products.
Again , the contract between Nigerian entrepreneurs and foreign entrepreneurs during the colonial era was very detrimental and the competitive business strategy of the foreign entrepreneurs was ruinous and also against moral standards established by the society. For example, the united African company (UAO) that was responsible for a sustain percentage of the import and export trade of Nigerian, has the policy of dealing directly with produced and refused to make use of the service of Nigeria entrepreneurs. The refusal of the expatriate to utilize the services of local business man inhibited the expansion and acquisition of necessary skills and attitude. For this reasons many eventually folded up. Hose that folded built up a resentment against business which become very demoralizing to other prospective entrepreneurs. As a result, the flow of entrepreneurship in the country was slowed down. But with more people being educated and the fact that government could no longer employ most school leavers, economy programs to encourage individuals to go into private business and self reliant were initiated (Theodore Gieger in Nwachukwu C.C (1990).

In view of the impact of entrepreneurship in improving the socio-economic conditions of the state, the government have made initiatives to promote indigenous entrepreneurship in small scale business. According to Lawal A.A 91998:2) typically actions of the government take the form of policy initiatives and directives to organization such as ministry of commerce and industry, national directorate of employment, ministry of labour and productivity, center for management development, research institutes to act as executing agencies with responsibility for stimulating, supporting and sustaining entrepreneurship development.
The researcher believes that a study of the functions as well as the achievement of the national directorate of employment (NDE) in Enugu state would help to evaluate the role of government support agencies in entrepreneurship development within the state.

1.2 STATE,MENT OF THE PROBLEM.
In Enugu state, various government support agencies have been set up by the government to assist entrepreneurship development and encourage the rapid development of small and medium scale industries. These agencies were established because government owned organization can no longer cope with employment of graduates and school leavers. Further more, the graduates and school leavers have to establish their own small business, which will help in solving the problems of unemployment and economic development.
Therefore, in carrying out this research it is very important to study the problems listed below.
i. Examine the mandates for establishing the NDE.
ii. To find out the programmes put in place by the NDE in order to successfully achieve these mandates.
iii. Know how far the NDE has gone in achieving her mandates.
iv. Some constraints problems which the NDE encounters in their effort to achieve her goals would be disclosed.