Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osibanjo, on Thursday said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration efforts to deal with unemployment was already paying off.
Prof. Osibanjo said employments have been created through the N-Power programme and granting of soft loans to people operating very small businesses across the country.
Osibanjo who spoke in Benin City at the State’s edition of Micro, Small and Medium-Scale Enterprise (MSME) Clinic.
He disclosed that the federal government is set to roll out another Social Investment Programme targeted at empowering petty traders across the country with interest -free loans,
The Vice President stated that he was in Benin City to ensure the small business owners in the state meet with regulatory agencies such as NAFDAC, Bank of Industry and others.
He said another batch of 300,000 beneficiaries would soon engaged by the Federal Government to increase the beneficiaries to 500,000.
“The policy of the Federal Government is to support businesses, not just big business but particularly small, medium-sized businesses and micro businesses. The whole idea is that we want to ensure that we give whatever support whether it is cash, advice or even registration to all of our small and medium enterprises.
“Apart from the existing GEEP MarketMoni scheme, which targets market women, traders, artisans and enterprising youths, Osinbajo also revealed that the Federal Government is rolling out TraderMoni, a new micro-credit scheme to cater for ultra-micro enterprises.
“It is a different thing from MarketMoni because TraderMoni is for the smaller traders. These are the hawkers; those who are doing little things where in many cases their inventory, the whole thing they are selling is sometimes not even more than N5,000- N10,000. We want to give those kinds of people some credit as well and once they pay back, we will give them some more money,”
Executive Director of Financial Inclusion of the Bank of Industry, Toyin Adeniji, said Edo State has recorded over 4,000 beneficiaries of the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
On his part, Governor Godwin Obaski said the state government would commence the school feeding programme in four local government areas.
He listed the local government areas to include Uhunmwode, Orhionmwon, Ovia North East and Ovia South West.
Governor Obaseki solicited for increased in Social Investment Programme to the state to stem illegal migration.
