By Chukwudi Nweje
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Umar Sadiya Farouq, has said the new phase of the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0), will be structured along federal, state and local governments.
GEEP was introduced in 2016 and offers three programmes TraderMoni for marginalised youths, MarketMoni that targets vulnerable women, and FarmerMoni specifically focused on rural farmers.
According to the minister, GEEP 2.0, which took off on August 24, 2021promises higher funds for beneficiaries and will benefit over 37 million Nigerians, will focus on people who are already engaged in business enterprises such as traders, artisans, enterprising youth, farmers as well as agricultural workers, even as the loans have been reviewed upwards.
“GEEP has provided incremental loans of between N10, 000 and N300, 000 to about 2.3 million beneficiaries under the three programmes. Beneficiaries are traders, artisans, agricultural workers and enterprising youth and other micro-service providers. Part of the new strategies includes an increase in the loan portfolio of TraderMoni and Market Moni loans from N10,000 to N50,000, while the Farmer Moni is now N300,000 along with the provision of the value chain and creation of digital marketplace (E-platform) for beneficiaries to sell their products. GEEP2.0 will also include a digital integration and coordination platform along with a strong and centralized monitoring and evaluation system aimed at enhancing loans recovery.”
She said GEEP2 builds on presidential approval to expand the scope to reach one million beneficiaries and will effectively deliver soft loans and skills to a wide range of unemployed citizens including persons living with disabilities, marginalised women and unemployed youth amongst other vulnerable groups in the society.