As part of activities lined up for his official visit to Kano State Thursday, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo will meet with a section of the over 11,000 beneficiaries of the federal government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) MarketMoni in Kano, to assess the impact of the scheme.
GEEP MarketMoni is a federal government Social Intervention Programme (SIP) that provides loans of up to N300,000 to segments of society with the greatest difficulty accessing credit. The scheme is executed by the Bank of Industry (BoI), and it directly impacts traders, market women, artisans, and farmers in all 36 states of the country, and the Federal Capital Territory.
A statement Tuesday quoted the Executive Director of BoI, Toyin Adeniji, to have said that the programme is aimed at reinvigorating the economy at the base of the pyramid, the hotbed of Nigeria’s financially vulnerable.
“GEEP MarketMoni is unprecedented in Nigeria’s history, granting interest-free credit facilities to existing microenterprises of market women and traders, artisans, enterprising youth and agricultural workers. It is critical to the federal government’s objective of inclusive growth,” Adeniji said.
To benefit from the scheme, applicants need to apply through their registered market associations and cooperatives, have a Bank Verification Number (BVN), and a mobile phone. The loans range from N10,000 to N300,000, tied to applicants’ BVNs, and are expected to be repaid within a six-month period without interest.
According to the Group Head (Microenterprise) of BoI, Uloma Ike, over 11,861 people have benefited from the GEEP MarketMoni loan scheme and over N583 million has been disbursed so far in Kano State alone.
“The beneficiaries and representatives of various market associations whose members have received loans will be able to interact with the vice-president, talk about the scheme and the impact of the loans on their businesses. It will also be an opportunity for the vice-president to experience first-hand, the impact of the programme which today has touched the lives of thousands of beneficiaries nationwide,” Ike said.
“We are looking forward to a robust discussion with the vice-president at the upcoming MSME clinic in Kano. At the event, attending beneficiaries will receive their disbursement certificates,” she added.
Besides the vice-president, other dignitaries expected at the Kano event include the Governor of the state, Abdullahi Ganduje, and Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment Programmes, Maryam Uwais.
The GEEP MarketMoni interactive session has been previously held in several states across the country. Two of the most recent are Onitsha, Anambra State on April 11, and Akure, Ondo State on May 3, 2018.
In Anambra, over 2,000 traders and artisans met with the vice-president, the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments, Maryam Uwais, and the Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah. Top-performing GEEP beneficiaries in Anambra were selected to display their products at the exhibition grounds and interact with the vice-president.
Similarly, in Ondo State, the vice-president interacted with several trade associations including market women.
