The Federal Government has commenced the disbursement of soft loans to 3,166 vulnerable and low-income groups involved in productive activities in Niger State under its Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0)
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Farouq, announced the cash disbursement kick-off on Tuesday during the inauguration of the National Social Investment Programmes (N-SIP) in Minna, the state capital.
The programmes inaugurated at the event include the Federal Government grant to vulnerable groups, GEEP 2.0 Roll-Out, digitalised payment for Conditional Cash Transfer, Height and Weight Measurement Kits, launching of nationwide sensitisation of home-grown school feeding and inspection of farm to kitchen centre
According to the minister, at least 1,142,783 potential beneficiaries were registered across 774 local government of the country in the first phase of GEEP, adding that in Niger State 41,513 beneficiaries are registered, with 9,637 verified and from which 3,166 of those enumerated were selected to benefit.
Farouq further explained that GEEP was captured in three signature schemes, comprising the TraderMoni and MarketMoni loan of N50,000 and FarmerMoni of N300,000 meant to uplift under-privileged and marginalised youths and women and to provide agricultural inputs to rural farmers.
In addition, the minister also inaugurated the Grant for Vulnerable Groups programme (GVG) designed to provide a one-off grant of N20,000 to 5,428 poorest and most vulnerable people in rural and urban areas across the 25 local government areas of Niger.
She explained that GVG was designed to empower beneficiaries to improve their productivity and commercial activities as a step towards lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.
Giving a breakdown of the performance of the government’s social intervention programmes over the past years, the minister disclosed that government had digitised payment of N5,000 Conditional Cash Transfer to improve the pace of payment to ensure transparency and accountability and enable the generation of reliable payment data and records.
She also hinted that 9.9 million children were currently being fed nationwide under the home-grown school feeding programme and that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the extension of the programme to additional five million children nationwide.
Earlier in her welcome address, the Focal Person, National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP) in Niger, Hajiya Amina Gu’ar, commended the Federal Government for initiating the programmes that had touched the lives of millions of poor and the vulnerable Nigerians over the years.
