The director- general of Nasarawa state Human Capital Development Office, Habiba Balarebe Suleiman, has said that the Nasarawa state youth revolving loan scheme is genuine and valid for the youth of the state to benefit from.
She stated this on Friday at a press briefing in Lafia while making clarifications on the scheme as against a media publication that the scheme was fake.
According to the DG, “Our attention has been drawn to a malicious publication seeking to tarnish the image of the state government, Human Capital Development Office, and the youth levolving scheme, we are here to inform the public that the loan scheme is genuine and valid”,
She urged the youth to shun what the publication and continue to apply for the youth revolving loan for the development of youth in the state.
The DG added that so far, the agency has received 89 applications with 42 applicants making up ‘Batch A’ and Batch B’ has 47 applicants.
She explained that out of the 42 applicants received in batch A, 10 were successful after the screening exercise meant to check the viability of the proposal and to ascertain originality, as well as the level of understanding of the business by the applicants.
“The whole amount for the Nasarawa state Youth Revolving Fund is N500m. N250m from the state government while N250m is from the Bank of Industry.
The screening exercise is in three stages, with NSHCDO interfacing with the BOI to see if the loan recommendations are adequate for each of the successful applicants.
On his part, manager bank of Industry Abdullahi Alhaji said the bank and the state government had entered into a matching fund agreement where each provided N250m to empower the youths of the state.
He explained that a MoU between them was signed on October 27, 2022, after the state government remitted their counterpart contribution of N250m.
He added that when a proposal is endorsed by the agency, a panel examines and screens the applicants and forwards the list of successful entrepreneurs to the bank for further scrutiny and possible payment.
He also said that the bank had set machinery on ground to ensure that only qualified applicants benefit in line with due process, as well as modalities to recover the loan given out to enable many other owners of businesses to benefit from the loan.
