Edo earmarks N3bn as post-COVID-19 intervention grant

Edo State Government on Thursday announced that it has set aside the sum of N3 billion as a post-COVID-19 intervention grant to cushion the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, in the state.

The grant, tagged Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus Programme, the government said, would be a component of Nigeria Cares World Bank Support Programme.

Making the announcement at a press briefing journalists in Benin City, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Wealth Creation, Cooperatives and Employment, Joel Edionwe, explained that under the programme, the Edo State Government‎ would provide up to 40 per cent grants to support businesses affected during the COVID-19 lockdown.

“What they will get from Edo Government is a grant to repay the loans they took for their businesses affected by the pandemic. We do not need to lament the COVID-19 effect, we must address them,” he said.

The Permanent Secretary announced that the total package of the World Bank support programme for Nigeria is $750 million, adding that its implementation would run from 2021 to 2022.

He further disclosed that his Ministry had trained over150 agents to capture the data of businesses in Edo State, adding that the programme would run in partnership with the Bank of ‎Industry that would carry out due diligence before shortlisting qualified businesses and disbursement of funds.

According to Edionwe, the Disbursement Linked Initiative for Result of the programme (DLI)has three categories, explaining that the first category covers grant to support post-COVID-19 loan to ease financial constraint, while category two grant support operational cost of enterprises-input and working cost (Employment and job creation grant and category three grant is to enhance technical capabilities, especially development oof digital/ICT capacities.

The DLI2, he explained, would support SMEs to cushion the effects of COVID-19 and provide them the operational cost for the running of their businesses so as to be able to created jobs.

The Permanent Secretary added that the DLI3 would be capacity building for the SMEs to adopt technology and migrate to digital platforms in doing their businesses.

The grants, according to him, would cover registered and unregistered, at no cost whatsoever and would be made open to all Edo indigenes.

He assured that the mode of disbursement would not be handled by the Edo State Government officials, but through the Bank of Industry, BOI, which would do due diligence, shortlist the beneficiaries and disburse.

“Edo State Government will only do the monitoring and evaluation and there will not be a third party interference. However, those in agricultural businesses are not going to be captured in this scheme as they have their own scheme,” Edionwe explained.

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