The Federal Government on Wednesday said it had intensified efforts in its implementation of different tracks of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Survival Fund with disbursements for Artisans Grant and the Payroll Support.
The Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment and Chairperson, Steering Committee of the Schemes, Amb. Mariam Yalwaji Katagum, made this disclosure during a media briefing on the implementation of the Fund and Guaranteed off-take Schemes in Abuja.
A Press Release by the Ministry’s Assistant Director (Information), Mrs. Oluwakemi Ogunmakinwa, quoted Amb. Katagum as saying that the application portal was migrated from www.survivalfundapplication.com to www.survivalfund.gov.ng as part of government’s efforts to ensure that the process of enlisting prospective beneficiaries was smooth and in compliance with Government regulations.
The minister clarified: “The white list of beneficiaries fully verified for disbursement and payments to the approved block of beneficiaries has also commenced and disbursements have been approved for a total of 16,253 MSME businesses accounting for a total of 101,567 beneficiaries. N30, 000 was paid to each of the 94,696 employees/Beneficiaries while N50, 000 was paid to each of the 6,871 employees/Beneficiaries.
“So far, 2.6% of the beneficiaries are people with Special Needs while 43% of the total beneficiaries are women in line with the guidelines on disbursement.
“The disbursements for the MSME Payroll Support commenced last week Wednesday 18th November, 2020 and it is on-going presently across the country. However, due to the inability of some states to meet their targets, the portal is likely to be reopened to accommodate such states”, she added.
According to her, other milestones achieved under this track is the verification for payment of 101,567 beneficiaries sourced from 16,253 businesses as at 17th Nov 2020 while the distribution of beneficiaries across the country include: Lagos State,25,000; Kano,17,000; Abia,16,000; and 13,000 for every other State.
Amb. Katagum said Artisan Track Scheme was being implemented in three streams, adding that “Under stream one, 29,000 beneficiaries (artisans) have been approved for payment across the following states: FCT, Lagos, Ondo, Kaduna, Borno, Kano, Bauchi, Anambra, Abia, Plateau and Delta∙
“While disbursement to beneficiaries under the first stream was ongoing, enumeration of Artisans in Stream 2 commenced on 26th October 2020 and concluded since 11th of November 2020.
“Beneficiaries under this stream have been fully verified and will start receiving payments from Tuesday, 24th November 2020. The States under Stream 2 comprise Taraba, Adamawa, Bayelsa, Edo, Ogun, Ekiti ,Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Enugu and Ebonyi”, the minister added.
She said enumeration of Artisans for the Stream 3 will commence on Monday, 30th November 2020, adding that Stream 3 states comprise of Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Zamfara, Yobe, Sokoto, Nasarawa, Niger, Imo, Oyo, Osun, Jigawa, Gombe and Benue.
Amb. Katagum said the formalization support scheme, which is simply the registration of 250,000 new businesses with CAC commenced on 26th October 2020 and the scheme, had so far registered 9,084 MSMEs from Lagos, 8,406 from Kano and 7,906 from Abia while other States have 6,606 beneficiaries each.
She noted that the selection of beneficiaries for all the schemes under the Survival Fund are treated on a first come first served basis.
