The Federal Government will soon begin the second phase of the restructured Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) 2.0 in Lagos State, Mrs Yetunde Arobieke has said.
Arobieke, the Lagos State Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Empowerment, said this in Ikeja on Thursday, during the Sensitisation of the new Restructured GEEP 2.0.
She was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment, Mr Olujimi Ige.
The commissioner said that GEEP, a programme under the National Social Investment Programme was meant for the poor and vulnerable.
According to her, GEEP is designed to provide access to credit for poor and vulnerable people who are at the bottom of the economic pyramid, which includes persons living with disability.
”The targeted beneficiaries will be people who are already in business enterprises and they would include traders, artisans, farmers/agricultural workers, enterprising youths and other categories of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
”In the last four years, GEEP has provided incremental loans of between N10,000 and N300,000 to about 2.3 million beneficiaries.
”The beneficiaries are traders, artisans, enterprising youth, agricultural workers and other micro-service providers under its flagship programmes of TraderMoni, MarketMoni and Farmer Moni,” she said.
Arobieke said that TraderMoni was specifically designed to empower youths that had right to education, orphans, abandoned out of school children and those with disability.
She added that MarketMoni was designed to empower under privileged and marginalised women in the society and lift them out of poverty, and the targeted were the female-headed households.
The commissioner said that the FarmerMoni programme would focus on entrepreneurship, whereby preferred institutions would provide complete value-chain to the beneficiaries of the FarmerMoni.
She said that it was expected to generate growth, diversify income and provide widespread employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for farmers in the rural areas.
The commissioner said that the intervention and investment opportunities were being coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD)
The Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lagos, Prince Waheed Ishola, said that GEEP 2.0 second phase would begin soon.
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Ishola said that In the second phase, he evisaged large turn out of applicants,
He said that the officers of NOA had been trained to register the applicants and would intensity sensitisation for people to be aware of such programmes that would help to alleviate poverty.
Ishola disclosed that some applicants for the GEEP 2.0 first phase were already receiving calls by fraudulent individuals to send their BVN.
He urged the applicants to be wary of such individuals, as NOA could only contact them (applicants) through text messages, and not asking for BVN.
(NAN)
