By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Dr. Nasir Sani Gwarzo has said that Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0) is packaged to address the plight of the poor and vulnerable in the country.
Dr. Gwarzo made the disclosure while speaking at the roll-out of GEEP 2.0 in Kano.
He said the Federal Government has paid more attention in generating solutions to tackle the plight of the poor and vulnerable among others.
“We are here to officially Roll-Out the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0) in Kano State. A programme designed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for vulnerable and low-income Nigerians who are involved in some sort of commercial activity/capacity but have never had the opportunity to access loans”.
“It is meant to give priority to the most vulnerable in our society e.g. widows, youths, disabled and the displaced amongst others”.
He said, “GEEP is captured in three signature schemes, namely, the Trader Moni loan of N50,000, targeted towards uplifting under-privileged and marginalized youth between the ages of 18-40 years in Nigeria”.
According to him, “Market Moni an empowerment programme designed for under privileged and marginalized women between the ages of 18 – 65 in our society, specifically targeted towards Female headed households e.g., Widows, divorcees amongst other vulnerable groups, then the FarmerMoni loan scheme which is equally designed to provide agricultural inputs between N50,000 – N300,000 to rural farmers”.
Dr. Gwarzo further explained that the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme was restructured to have a top-bottom representation from the Federal, State and Local Government levels, respectively. In the first phase of GEEP programme about 1,142,783 potential beneficiaries where registered by the COMO’S across the 774 LGAs in Nigeria out of which 62,625 potential beneficiaries were registered in Kano State across the 44 LGAs after which verification was done about 16,089 for Phase I, were selected having met the set criteria of selection.
The Permanent Secretary said these selected beneficiaries are currently under-going enumeration and today I have gracefully come to Roll-Out the programme in my home State the “Centre of Commerce” Kano State. Hence, successful beneficiaries of the GEEP proagramme will start receiving credit alert from Access bank from today by God’s grace.
Dr. Gwarzo said in a bid to onboard more beneficiaries on to the GEEP programme, the Ministry shall soon commence the second phase of GEEP registration of which an official date will be communicated. The second phase of GEEP is expected to capture more vulnerable groups for the purpose of uplifting them out of abject poverty and to reduce unemployment in the society.
He commended the Kano State Government for immense contributions and partnership for ensuring that the programme is effectively implemented in the state.
