GEEP: FG Targets 37m Vulnerable Citizens, Marginalized Youths
•Appoints Desk Officers across 774 LGAs
Federal Government on Friday reiterated its commitment towards empowering over 37 Nigerians including marginalized youths who had no access to education, orphans, as well as people living with disabilities through the implementation of The Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq gave the assurance in Abuja, during the official launch of the training of staff of National Orientation Agency as Master Trainers for seamless execution and implementation of GEEP.
The GEEP programme was developed for vulnerable and low-income Nigerians who are involved in commercial activity in some sort of capacity but have never had the opportunity to access loans from traditional lending institutions.
The programme was set up to offer interest-free and collateral-free credit to millions of vulnerable low-income Nigerians (primarily women and youths) operating Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) within the informal sector.
The Minister, who expressed delight over the successes recorded so far in the implementation of the schemes, disclosed that the Ministry in partnership with NOA has appointed Desk Officers at all the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“It is of great pleasure to formally announce a collaborative partnership with the National Orientation Agency as one of the partners in the implementation of the NSIP programmes since inception. In its bid to consistently raise awareness to positively change attitudes, values, and behaviours, I must say the agency has shown outstanding dedication towards the effective implementation of the NSIP programme.
“The NOA is identified as one of the organs of Government agencies largely spread across all states and Local Governments with the capacity to adequately engage, mobilize and sensitize the general public on Government programmes and policies.
“It is in this vein that the FMHADMSD entered a partnership with this agency to appoint the Community Orientation and Mobilization officers (COMO’s) as the – ‘GEEP Local Government Desk Officers’ at all the 774 local government levels areas across the 36 states and the FCT.
“The role of the Desk Officers will be to: sensitize communities on the GEEP programme; register interested beneficiaries of TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni; collect and collate necessary data for the programme; provide necessary feedback to the Programme Coordinators at State and Federal Levels; encourage active participation of the programme and uphold the mandate of the programme and lead with honesty, fairness under conditions of oath.”
According to her, the two-day intensive interactive training course intends to “train the master trainers and to provide an understanding and insight to the processes, drivers, threats and opportunities associated with the core GEEP activities.
“The training is expected to educate the Master trainers about the newly introduced structure of top-bottom representation from the Federal through State and Local Government levels respectively, as well as inform them on the roles and responsibilities of the COMO’s on how to register and enlighten the target beneficiaries on how to access the GEEP loans in furtherance to help eradicate poverty, generate employment throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” she noted.
In the last four years, GEEP has so far provided incremental loans between N10,000 and N300,000 to about 2.3 million beneficiaries who are traders, artisans, enterprising youth, agricultural workers and other micro-service providers under its flagship programs: Trader Moni, Market Moni and Farmer Moni.
The Programme aims to train and equip ‘Community Orientation and Mobilization Officers (COMOs)’ with the requisite skills to work with the FMHADMSD to address the challenges of credit and financial inclusion for over 37 million Nigerians at the base of the pyramid who are involved in active commercial activity but have never had the opportunity to access loans.
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