TheCable

The federal government says it has expended N37 billion on the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) survival fund scheme.

The initiative is a component of the Nigeria economic sustainability plan (NESP) which was developed by a committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

The government had announced that the survival fund portal will be opened on Tuesday, February 9, for the guaranteed offtake stimulus scheme and the general MSME grant.

According to a statement issued by Laolu Akande, spokesperson to the vice president, the N37bn covered schemes such as N50,000 payroll support for over 300,000 beneficiaries, one-time grants of N30,000 to about 100,000 artisans, and 100,000 Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) business name registrations.

Akande explained that ministers and heads of government agencies had presented reports to Osinbajo at a meeting of the economic sustainability committee on Monday.

He said Godwin Emefiele, governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), reported the bank’s intervention schemes such as disbursement of over N192bn for household and MSMEs grants to 426,000 beneficiaries, with plans to do over N100bn more.

Emefiele also said that under the collateral-free agric-business and small & medium enterprise investment scheme, there were ongoing grants of concessionary loans between N150,000 to N2.5 million.

In that category, the governor said over N106 billion had been disbursed to over 27,000 beneficiaries.

“In the agric sector, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Alhaji Sabo Nanono, also reported that under the ESP, a total of 5.4 million farmers have now been enumerated to get the support under the plan, ” the statement read.

“He added that for the enumeration which involved geospatial tagging, almost 73,000 N-Power volunteers were trained and 30,000 of them deployed to 774 local government areas.

“For the purposes of funding through the CBN, the minister disclosed that 2.9 million of the farmers have had their BVN enrolment validated.

“Also, the clearing of 3,200 hectares of land for farming is ongoing in several states including Edo, Plateau, Ekiti, Cross River, Ogun, Kaduna, Kwara, and Osun States while rural road constructions have reached about 28 per cent completion covering 344km, linking about 500 markets across the country.”