The Federal government on Monday said the broadband penetration in the country has moved from 38% last year to 45%, with a total of 56.18million persons have been registered and given the National Identification Numbers.
The Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, while briefing the Economic Sustainability Committee on Monday, said 170 institutions have been registered to conduct the NIN.
He also disclosed that the Telcos would be licensed for the enrollment, while over 1060 registration centers have been activated across the country for the NIN.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s Ministers and heads of agencies have been providing reports on progress in the implementation of the Economic Sustainability Plan of the Buhari Administration, headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo,
The ESP also received reports of the release of N37B for the Survival Fund covering such schemes like N50,000 Payroll Support for three months to over 300,000 beneficiaries, one-time grants of N30,000 to about 100,000 artisans, and 100,000 business name registrations paid for by the Federal Government.
Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele reported on the bank’s intervention including disbursement of over N192B for household/MSMEs grants to 426,000 beneficiaries across the country, with plans to do over N100B more in that category named Targeted Credit Facility.
The CBN Governor disclosed that under the collateral-free Agric-Business/Small & Medium Enterprise Investment Scheme, there are ongoing grants of concessionary loans from between N150,000 to N2.5million.
Governor disclosed that over N106B has been disbursed so far to over 27,000 beneficiaries.
In the Agric sector, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Sabo Nanono also reported that under the ESP, a total of 5.4million farmers have now been enumerated to get the support under the plan.
He added that for the enumeration which involved geospatial tagging, almost 73,000 N-Power volunteers were trained and 30,000 of them deployed to 774 Local Government Areas. For the purposes of funding through the CBN, the Minister disclosed that 2.9million of the farmers have had their BVN enrollment validated.
As the farming season kicks off, a total of 3,200 hectares of land has been cleared for farming in several States including Edo, Plateau, Ekiti, Cross River, Ogun, Kaduna, Kwara, and Osun States while rural road constructions have reached about 28% completion covering 344km, linking about 500 markets across the country.
Others who briefed the Committee included the Labour, Employment and Productivity Minister, Chris Ngige, and his Minister of State colleague Festus Keyamo, listed the Federal Government’s efforts to prevent the retrenchment of staff in the Private Sector because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ngige stated that some hotel companies agreed not to retrench adding that ” bankers have all committed not to retrench staff at this time.”
