N75bn fund: Why Lagos, Kano, Abia will get more beneficiaries

Lagos, Kano, and Abia states will produce more beneficiaries than any other state and the Federal Capital Territory in the sharing of the Economic Sustainability Plan’s N75bn Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises Survival Fund.

This was contained in an updated report of the Federal Government on the implementation of the survival fund scheme on Sunday.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, confirmed the report.

Justifying the government’s decision to pick more beneficiaries from the three states, Akande explained that Lagos, Kano, and Abia State have more MSMES activities than the remaining states.

According to the distribution pattern contained in the report, for the Payroll Support, Lagos will get 25,000 beneficiaries; Kano gets 17,000; Abia gets 16,000; while other states get 13,000 each.

For the General MSME Grants, Lagos gets 3,880; Kano -3,280; Abia -3,080; while other states get 2,640 each.

For free Corporate Affairs Commission registration, Lagos gets 9,084 beneficiaries; Kano -8,406; Abia – 7,906; while other states get 6,606 each.

For the Artisan and Transport Grants, the 36 states and FCT will get 9,009; while for the Guaranteed Offtake Stimulus Scheme, Lagos gets 3,880; Kano -3,280; Abia -3,080 and other states 12,640 each.

he report indicated that Abia, Lagos, and Kano states were separated from the others in the distribution of slots for beneficiaries because of their special status in the MSMEs space, having a larger concentration of small businesses in the country.

The report allayed any fear of marginalisation of states in the distribution of slots for the five tracks of the survival fund.

On the ongoing disbursement of grants under the Artisans Track, in the first set of states, the report indicates that 66 per cent of the total number of registered potential beneficiaries are male artisans while 34 per cent are female artisans.

The intention of the Federal Government, under the scheme, is to augment the payroll obligations of businesses in health, production, education, hospitality and food production sectors; provide N50, 000 grants to an additional eligible 100,000 MSMEs; register 250,000 new businesses with CAC at no cost to the MSMEs; and support self-employed individuals with one-off payment of N30,000 to each of them.

The plan is also geared towards stimulating direct local production in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT by enabling MSMEs in the production sector with funds to stimulate ‘post COVID lockdown’ off-take products. (The PUNCH)