Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday, assured Nigerians of the present administration’s resolve towards effective implementation of various components of the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPs) which has so far impacted 12 million households across the country.
Prof Osinbajo who gave the assurance in Abuja, during the launch of the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program (GEEP 2.0), passed a vote of confidence on the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Development and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq on effective implementation of GEEP.
The Vice President who was represented by the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, said: “The GEEP is a baby of the presidency handed over to Madam Humanitarian to nurture and I have been asked to let you know that you have the full backings of their Excellences and the full confidence that you are up to the task of reaching out to the majority of the poor people in our country and alleviating their conditions.
“For many of us who live in the cities may not know the great impacts this programme is having on our people, many are in the villages whose annual income are not up to N10,000. So reaching out to them and extending a hand of fellowship is a major contribution to reducing poverty in our country. The focus is on the poor, if we don’t provide for them, inclusiveness would have failed in our bid to take them away from poverty.
“By reducing poverty, we are reducing diseases, we are banishing banditry, we would have succeeded in taking millions of our youths out of the reach of recruiters of terrorism; we would have attacked ignorance, we would have reduced mortality we would have unleashed the creativity of our people, as well as their enterprise which Nigerians are known for all over the world, Prof Osinbajo said.
On his part, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SSGF), Boss Mustapha who disclosed that over N400 billion is being spent annually on the implementation of NSIPs, applauded the role being played by the Ministry towards emancipating Nigerian youths, women and vulnerable groups across the country.
Mustapha who was represented by Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr Sunday Dare reiterated the present administration’s resolve towards the implementation of people-oriented programmes and policies.
While noting that youths are the highest beneficiaries of all social investment programmes being implemented by the present administration, Mustapha noted that N-Power remains the largest youth empowerment programme being implemented across the African continent.
Mustapha who described Nigeria as a youthful country, with over 60 youth population, currently has about 90 percent Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) owned by youths across the country.
In her keynote address, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq affirmed that the four NSIP clusters, namely: the N-Power, the GEEP, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and National Home Grown School Feeding Programme have collectively impacted over 12 million households since inception and the numbers are growing.
“The GEEP programme is a veritable tool designed to end poverty in many ways. In other words, GEEP targets the unbanked poor and vulnerable but skilled population that has always been left out on credit delivery programmes and is directed at providing soft and affordable loans to finance their businesses. The GEEP is innovatively targeted and delivered under three unique products. The TraderMoni for marginalized youth, the MarketMoni targets vulnerable women, and the FarmerMoni specifically focus on rural dwellers.”
She also applauded President Muhammadu Buhari for the gracious approval to expansion to provide loans to an additional 1 million beneficiaries, with emphasis on targeting small holder farmers in the year 2020/2021, the GEEP has been restructured and is being flagged off today as GEEP 2.0.
According to her, “part of the new strategies include an increase in the loan portfolio of TraderMoni and MarketMoni loans from N10,000 to N50,000, while the FarmerMoni is now N300,000 along with the provision of value chain and creation of digital marketplace (E-platform) for beneficiaries to sell their products. Furthermore, a digital integration, and coordination platform along with a strong and centralized monitoring and evaluation system aimed at enhancing loans recovery.
“I call on all Nigerians who are specially targeted by the NSIP and indeed the GEEP to please take advantage of all that the programme offers so that the vision of Mr President of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 2030 will unfailingly be accomplished.”
In her remarks, GEEP Team Lead, Zainab Munsawa who cited the 2019 Nigeria Bureau of Statistics report, observed that about 40 per cent of the total population (about 83 million) people live below the poverty line of N11,400 or $22 per day.
She also noted that most of the 37.07 million MSMEs operating across the country who account for over 84% of total jobs in the country and about 48.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as well as about 7.27% of goods and services exported out of the country, lack access to finance.
She however noted that: “Consequently upon taking up the reins of affairs over 6-years ago, President Muhammadu Buhari showed purposeful leadership and his empowerment drive by catering to this segment of the society, when in 2016 the Government Enterprise & Empowerment Programme (GEEP) was established under the National Social Investments Programmes (NSIP).
According to Munsawa, “for the past 5 years, the GEEP programme has been able to target, and deliver credit to over 2.3 million people under the MSMEs demographic using Biometrics, Bank Verification Number (BVN) as digital collateral, mobile data capture and mobile wallets.
“Therefore, after evaluating the impact of GEEP programme as a whole, it became mandatory to refocus and restructure to GEEP 2.0. Hence a new organisational structure and model of implementation was introduced to focus on surplus loan amount and new target beneficiaries dedicated exclusively to help empower the poor and vulnerable women, marginalised youth with enterprising skills given special consideration to agricultural empowerment in rural areas.”
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