No fewer than 27,000 traders from Oyo State are to benefit in the Federal Government empowerment programme, ‘Trader Moni’.
This was made public by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, during an assessment visit to Gbagi Market in Ibadan on Thursday.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the scheme is a Federal Government intervention programme for petty traders under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme.
Osinbajo said the Federal Government was committed to empowering traders through boosting the prospects of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.
He said that ‘Trader Moni’ was targeted at petty traders across the country.
The vice president gave an assurance that a minimum of 30,000 petty traders in every state would benefit from the programme.
He said: “Each beneficiary would get N10,000 interest-free loans to be repaid in six months.
“Any beneficiary who repays back the loan in six months would thereafter take more than N10,000.”
Toyin Adeniji, an Executive Director at the Bank of Industry, said the event was to carry out the market activation of ‘Trader Moni’ for the petty traders.
Adeniji said: “We are here to engage the petty traders, enumerate them and ensure they get the N10,000 coming through the Federal Government.
“This scheme is one of the many social intervention programmes that the Federal Government has been administering in the last three years.”
She listed some of the other schemes as N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfer and the School Feeding Programme.
Adeniji stated that the response to the programme was tremendous, adding that many traders had already been registered across markets in Ibadan.
Gbenga Afolabi, one of the officials of the scheme, said that no fewer than 27,000 beneficiaries had been registered across the state.
Afolabi stated that some of the beneficiaries, who had registered in the state had started receiving the loan.
Some of the beneficiaries in separate interviews lauded the government on the initiative, pledging to make good use of the loan.
NAN reports that the vice president was accompanied to the market by Chief Moses Adeyemo, Oyo State Deputy Governor, Olalekan Alli, Secretary to Oyo State Government and other members of the State Executive Council.
