Determined to cushion the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on small medium enterprises, petty traders and artisans nationwide, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has activated the GEEP infrastructure initiative.
Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) is one of the social intervention programmes comprising TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni and executed by the Bank of Industry.
GEEP is a completely digitised programme where all eligible traders are captured into a database, verified via phone and facial recognition technology, and receive disbursements in mobile wallets.
Over the next few weeks, a total of N5 billion is expected to be disbursed through GEEP, reaching up to 500,000 petty traders nationwide. With several states going on lockdown, petty traders and micro enterprises are hit the hardest as they live on daily incomes from trade. These loans are to cushion the income losses, while also enabling these traders to serve their communities with essential items like food, hygiene products, domestic supplies. The first phase of 100,000 loans has kicked off.
Uzoma Nwagba, chief operating officer of the programme, says “there has never been a better time for this project to meet a such critical need. I am just grateful that we have the infrastructure to do this. The primary focus of the Ministry now is how to scale things up”.
One of the rounds of disbursements took place at the Obalende LCDA Community Market recently in Lagos. Observing strict social distancing guidelines, petty traders with their wares were in safe distances apart, in which they were provided with GEEP loans by kitted staff of the programme. Shoppers from the community, standing in pre-marked boxes for each trader, were able to purchase needed items and return home. To speed up of rollout of disbursements, a number of the beneficiaries are traders previously captured and verified on the GEEP database.
Speaking for the market women, the Iyaoloja of Obalende thanked the Federal Government for the opportunity of the loans. In her words, “you know we market people earn living by buying and selling. With this Coronavirus, everything has been very slow; no market, but people need to eat and market is open small small. This Federal Government loan will help us a lot. We are more than 500 in our group.”
All 500,000 traders benefitting from new GEEP loans nationwide, as well as all existing beneficiaries, will enjoy the 3-month moratorium as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
KELECHI EWUZIE
