Yemi Osinbajo
1.7m to 2m MSMEs to benefit overall from Survival Fund & Payroll Support
Half a million to benefit from payroll Support alone
330, 000 Artisans & Transport workers to get grants
250,000 free Business names registration
Over 1.3m to enjoy Survival Fund
Over 300,000 MSMES to get another 15B in Guaranteed Offtake
As more Nigerians and small businesses register for the recently launched Survival Fund Scheme of the Federal Government, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has described progress recorded in the first three days of the registration of applicants as massive and impressive, reiterating the commitment of the Buhari administration to ensure effective implementation of all the schemes.
The Vice President stated this yesterday during a virtual interactive session by the Africa Report magazine which focused on Nigeria’s post-pandemic recovery plan also referred to as ‘Bouncing Back’.
Responding to a question on the implementation of the various schemes under the ESP for small and medium businesses, the Vice President said the response by Nigerians to the recently launched Survival Fund was massive and assured that the government remained committed to effective implementation of the scheme.
More and more potential beneficiaries are going online to access the N100B Survival Fund whose registration started on Monday.
According to him, “a couple of days ago, the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment launched the Survival Fund. The Fund includes payroll support for about 500, 000 beneficiaries and the plan is to take qualifying businesses who have a minimum of 10 employees and pay salaries of those staff for three months.
“The portal was opened about three days ago and there has been a massive response to it. Payroll support is one important way that we intend to support small scale businesses. We are also giving artisans and transporters, grants to support their businesses and it will cover about 333, 000 of such artisans and transporters.”
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Continuing, the Osinbajo said: “there is also a free business name registration that we are doing for 250, 000 persons who wish to register their businesses.”
Referring specifically to the expected impact of the schemes on MSMEs, the Vice President said “we are looking at 1.3 million beneficiaries under the Survival Fund and under the artisans and transporters grants. Then we have a Guaranteed Off-take Scheme.
“Under this programme, basically, if you manufacture certain items and food products, we will buy them from you. Our target is about 300, 000 of such producers of foods. Both schemes will benefit about 1.7 million individuals and small businesses.”
Speaking further about the effective implementation of the schemes, the Vice President said measures are being put in place to ensure that the target beneficiaries are impacted positively.
In the implementation aspect of the programme, Osinbajo said “we are trying to get everything going. The financing is not the immediate problem, the important thing is organizing the beneficiaries and ensuring that the support gets to them. It is more the nitty-gritty of ensuring that this money gets to those for whom it is meant.”
Responding to another set of questions about the agriculture component of the plan, the Vice President said the Agric programme is on course as two million farmers across the country have already been certified to benefit from the programme which aims to create jobs and guarantee food sufficiency.
“We are hoping that we can become a net exporter, at the moment we are the biggest producers of yam and cassava in the world. And through this Mass Agriculture programme, we hope to become a net exporter of some of the products that we are focused on.
“So, a key factor of the Mass Agriculture Programme is that there is guarantee off-take for farmers,” Professor Osinbajo added.
He said the overall target of government in the Economic Sustainability Plan is to save existing jobs and revamp businesses by improving the spending capability of Nigerians through the various initiatives in industry, agriculture, mass housing, and the solar connectivity projects.
The virtual dialogue was monitored by over 1, 200 persons through different platforms across the world.
