Federal government announces new cash handout empowerment programme for the poor

NIGERIA'S federal government has announced fresh plans to hand out loans to 98,000 persons in another phase of its empowerment programme supervised by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development.

Under the scheme, the beneficiaries, who come from across the nation’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, have since been engaged in the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, otherwise known as GEEP 2.0. Already, the final verification of Phase One applicants selected having been certified qualified, to benefit from the small loans said to be ranging from N50,000 to N300,000, has been concluded.

Minister Sadiya Farouq, said: “All beneficiaries of GEEP 2.0 shall receive congratulatory and sensitisation text messages in the coming days informing them of their qualification. All qualified beneficiaries will soon receive their disbursement alerts.

"We wish to remind all qualified beneficiaries that this is a loan payable without interest. It is not a grant or a government windfall. It is a soft interest-free loan that must be paid back within nine months."

Apparently, the GEEP 2.0 is a loan scheme to give credit access to poor and vulnerable individuals, including persons with disabilities and persons at the bottom of the economic pyramid. These are people who are engaged in small scale commercial activities under the government's three flagship schemes - MarketMoni, TraderMoni, and FarmerMoni.

Ms Farouq said: “Tradermoni targets uplifting under-privileged and marginalised youths aged between 18 and40 years in Nigeria by providing them with loans of N50,000 while MarketMoni targets underprivileged and marginalised women aged between 18 to 55 years like widows, divorcees amongst other vulnerable groups. They get interest-free loans of N50,000 payable within six to nine months.

"FarmerMoni is for Nigerian farmers aged between 18 and 55 years in rural areas that operate in the agricultural space and they are provided with loans of up to N300,000 for farming input. This scheme has 12 months including three months moratorium and nine months repayment period.”