The Edo State government on Thursday said over N3billion has been budgeted to support Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises that were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Briefing journalists in Benin City, Joel Edionwe, permanent secretary, Edo State ministry of wealth creation, cooperatives and employment, said the recovery and economic stimulus programme under the world bank intervention programme is targeted at cushioning the effects of COVID-19 on businesses.
He said the money, which is part of the $750million loan intervention programme for the 36 states of the federation, would span from 2021 to 2022.
According to him, the pandemic created a lot of dislocation, there were lockdowns, some businesses were not able to run and those who borrowed money from financial institutions were not able to do business; so, many of them could not pay.
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While noting that the programme is open to all Edo citizens, the permanent secretary disclosed that they have recruited and trained agents who will go round the entire wards across the 18 Local Government Areas to ensure data and businesses are captured into the system.
“The Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (N-CARES) programme is an intervention programme between the world bank and Nigeria, and by extension Edo State government.
“For the entire programme in Nigeria, it is $750million. For this programme, which is Result Area-3 (R3), the budget is over N3billion that is attached to it in Edo State. For food security, agriculture there are also support for them.
“The programme covers various aspects. Broadly, there are three areas of it, some address livelihood issues, some are targeted at food security but the one for which we are here is called Result Area-3 (R3) intervention to support Small and Medium-scale Enterprises recovery and economic stimulus programme,” Edionwe said.
He further categorized the programme into three Disbursement Linked Initiative(DLI), namely, grant to support the post-COVID-19 loan, support for SMEs to cushion operational cost, and grants to enhance technical capabilities and development of digital capacities.
“The first DLI is designed to give 40 percent loan recovery assistance to these enterprises. For those who had some of these loans running and couldn’t pay back due to COVID-19, this programme will support them up to 40 percent to ensure repayment.
“The mode of disbursement is not done by the ministry. This programme is running in partnership with the Bank of Industry, and the platform to be adopted is owned by the BOI. Whatever data we are going to collate will be forwarded to the BOI, who will then do due diligence to ensure that all applications are treated with merit and in line with the guidelines.
“The initial fund to enable this program run will be provided by the Edo State government, and the governor has given his guaranty. We have started the funding program by addressing preliminary and preparatory matters.
“The programme is operating on a framework called Performance for Result(P for R). What the world bank does is to allow us to run this program, do an independent verification to actually ascertain the result. If the results are confirmed, then the world bank comes back to reimburse the money that the state government spent on this program”, he added
