FG Discloses Impact Of TraderMoni, Others During 2016 Recession, COVID-19

The Federal Government through the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) provided interest-free loans to 2.3 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The small businesses obtained financial support between 2016 to 2020.

The enterprises that benefited from the interest-free loans were traders, artisans, enterprising youths, agricultural workers and other micro-service providers. It was learnt that the government enabled small and medium businesses to access loans worth between N10,000 and N300,000.

The period these businesses obtained the loans fall between the year (2016) Nigeria went into recession and came out, as well as this year, which has been largely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic which resulted into an economic downturn for the country.

AllNews recall that the government had directed businesses, small, medium and large to lockdown for over two months in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus. This measure handicapped the households income, revenues of businesses and the economy.

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In order to tackle the economic impact on small and medium businesses and the lower-class households, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration set up the GEEP, under which the TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni programmes fall.

Other programmes of GEEP includes N-Power, Home Grown School Feeding programme and conditional cash transfer (CCT) - these are all part of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP). The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, said the programmes have created employment opportunities.

While speaking about the impact of the GEEP on the small and medium businesses since 2016, Umar-Farouq said, “Since its inception in 2016 to date, GEEP has empowered over 2.3 million such micro-enterprises with interest-free loans to grow their businesses."

Umar-Farouq added that community businesses have been established by the 109,823 beneficiaries from batches A and B of the N-Power scheme.