MSME Survival Fund Records More Beneficiaries Nationwide

In furtherance of its support for small businesses to cushion the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic under the implementation of its Economic Sustainability Plan, a total of 296,032 Nigerians has so far benefitted from the Federal Government’s ongoing MSME Survival Fund Payroll Support track, while there are 166,000 beneficiaries under the Artisan Support track.

In the same vein, 100,000 businesses have so far benefitted under the formalization support track of the Federal Government MSMEs Survival Fund, which is aimed at registering 250,000 new businesses for free with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

The payroll support track targets supporting 500,000 beneficiaries with payment of up to N50,000 per employee for a period of three months, with the disbursements to approved Payroll Support beneficiaries commencing in November 2020.

So far, youths make up 82 per cent of the 296,032 beneficiaries under the Payroll Support.

Also, the Payroll Support Portal (www.survivalfund.gov.ng ) will be reopened for 7 days starting from January 27 until February 2, 2021, to ensure that states that didn’t meet up with their quota, are able to ramp up their state quota within this period.

To date, the following States have met their quota and are consequently NOT ELIGIBLE to participate in reopening exercise. The States are: Benue, Plateau, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna and Rivers and the FCT.

Under the Artisan Support scheme, a total of 333,000 Artisans and Transport business operators nationwide will get a one-time operations grant of N30,000 per beneficiary to reduce the effects of income loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Enumeration and verification process is still ongoing for the transport

The scheme made compulsory female inclusion and achieved a female participation of 42% and male participation of 58%. There was a 5% quota for artisans with disability, while the total number of registrations for artisans with special needs made up 1%.

The formalization support scheme had commenced on the 26th of October, 2020, with the registration by aggregators – CAC registration agents across the 36 states and the FCT. The scheme will run for a period of 3 months effective from the date of commencement.

The MSME Survival Fund, a component under the Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan, NESP, is designed to support vulnerable Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in meeting their payroll obligations and safeguard jobs in the MSMEs sector. The scheme is estimated to save not less than 1.3 million jobs across the country and specifically impact on over 35,000 individuals per state.