The Federal Government’s Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme(GEEP2.0)has commenced the disbursement of soft loans to 3,166 vulnerable and low-income groups that are engaged in some commercial activities in Niger state.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq stated this during the inauguration of the National Social Investment Programmes (N-SIP)in Minna on Tuesday.
It was gathered that among the programmes inaugurated were the Federal Government’s grant to vulnerable groups,(GEEP2.0) 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.
The minister noted that no fewer than 1,142,783 potential beneficiaries were registered across 774 local governments of the country in the first phase of GEEP.
According to her, 41,513 beneficiaries were registered in Niger state with 9,637 verified and 3,166 enumerated beneficiaries selected to benefit.
She added that GEEP was captured in three signature schemes such as TraderMoni and MarketMoni loan of N50,000 and Farmer Moni of N300,000 meant to uplift underprivileged and marginalised youths and marginalised women in the society as well as provide agricultural inputs to rural farmers respectively.
The minister also inaugurated Grant for Vulnerable Group 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 the state.
She explained that GVG was meant to empower beneficiaries to improve their productivity and their commercial activities, mainly aimed at easing most of them out of poverty, adding that the programme was targeted at lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.
She also noted that the Federal 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.
Faruq said that 9.9 million children were currently being fed nationwide under the homegrown school feeding programme, adding that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the extension of the programme to additional five million children.
Earlier, in her welcome address, the Focal Person, National Social Investment Programme(N-SIP)in Niger state, Barr. Amina Gu’ar lauded President Buhari for initiating programmes that touched the lives of the poor and the vulnerable in society.
She also lauded the state Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello for being passionate about the implementation of the programmes and the Minister, for working tirelessly to take the programmes to greater heights.
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