By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja
About 23,000 artisans and traders from 13 states of the federation have benefited from federal government’s soft loans under the Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President in the Office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande, has said.
In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday, Akande said the beneficiaries were drawn from Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Ekiti, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Lagos, Osun, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and Rivers states as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“The Micro-credit scheme is a no-interest loan scheme, with only a one-time five per cent administrative fee for costs. The loan is targeted at micro-enterprises: traders, artisans, market men and women, entrepreneurs, farmers with the involvement of cooperatives and executed through the Bank of Industry, BOI.
“Although over 23,000 people have benefited from the loans, altogether, over 1 million people have already enrolled for the programme across the country and are expected to benefit this year.
“To facilitate the loan disbursement, four payment providers have been signed-on for the programme mostly in the urban areas. The next wave of payment providers, coming on stream by March 2017, would provide a much wider coverage in the rural areas.
“Equally, about 8,436 market associations and cooperatives nationwide have been registered for this scheme through the web portal (www.boi.ng/market), as well as through paper application forms. The loans range from N10,000, to N100,000 per applicant.
“While the loans would be paid directly to individuals, they are expected to belong to registered associations and/or cooperatives as the case may be, to ensure that they are peer-endorsed as credible, and to facilitate timely repayments. All beneficiaries must have BVNs and bank accounts,” the statement said.
