FG to disburse N140bn to petty traders, artisans nationwide

The Federal Government, yesterday, concluded plans to disburse N140 billion to petty traders nationwide to improve the country’s economy.

The initiative to be championed by the Bank of Industry, BOI, will benefit petty traders, artisans, enterprising youths as well as small scale farmers across the country.

To this end, BOI had employed the services of market aggregators to train, identify and monitor those that will benefit from the programme to ensure that the money is paid back in 24 weeks.

Speaking at the training of super agents, who are the foot soldiers for the effective implementation of the programme, in Abuja, the market aggregator of the Propoor Gate Foundation for the North, Yunusa Gafai, explained that the N140bn for the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, GEEP, under its special intervention programme on social investment is to empower the beneficiaries economically.

File photo: Traders

According to him, the loans to be given to them range from N10,000 to N100,000 with no interest charges but an administrative fee of N500 per N10,000.

To access the loan, Gafai noted that the individual must be a registered member of an accredited market association, cooperative or trade group and must have a valid Bank Verification Number, BVN.

“As a market aggregator, what we do in each state is to first identify our super agents and call for their applications, after training them, we assign them to each association. They are then mandated to open an account for each beneficiary under them. Once they are able to do all that they are then qualified to apply and get the loan.

“The Bank of Industry is in charge of this loan and has promise to give only those already in business that needs expansion. For this to be implemented, the loan will be repaid daily by beneficiaries, according to the different categories.

“The amount to be repaid daily for the N10, 000 categories is N437.50, N875.00 for N20, 000, N2, 187.50 for N50, 000 and N4, 375.00.”