By Olasunkanmi Akoni

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu has presented the sum of N40 million grant as start up capital for businesses to assist 2, 000 residents, mainly youths and women.

David-West stood for anything noble, just —Buhari

Sanwo-Olu, speaking at the presentation ceremony, organised by Office of the Civic Engagement, as part of activities for the “Civic Week, “ held at LTV Ground, Agindigbi, Ikeja, explained that the grant was basically to assist the beneficiaries who are entrepreneurs to improve the status of their businesses towards earning more profits and making them self reliant.

Earlier, Special Adviser to the Governor on Civic Engagement, Princess Aderemi  Adebowale, explained that the grant was part of the activities lined up for this year Civic Week designed by the Lagos State government through her office to engage residents, alongside the ‘Sanwo-Olu Cares’ initiative, a program to cater for downtrodden.

She said: “Beneficiaries of the social welfare inclusive initiative would be encouraged to invest 50 per cent of the grant received in a small-scale business. The office of Civic Engagement has partnered with some companies to assist our citizens to actualize these goals by planning and monitoring the growth of their small-scale business.” Adebowale added.

The Special Adviser, said that aside from the empowerment initiative other activities that will inculcate social values in children and youth, serving as a guideline for achieving widespread civic engagement through planned programmes of action has been included in the event.

“We aim at building a people-centered Lagos by adopting a variety of engaging activities as a channel to inspire individuals to be active participants in the process of nation-building. Engaging citizens remains our ultimate goal. We can only improve Lagos through our collective effort.”

Each of the selected beneficiaries, received the sum of N20,000 from the State Government to aid them to achieve their goal of expanding the business to a stage of creating further employment.

It was gathered that after another three months, Lagos State Government will evaluate progress made by each of the 2000 beneficiaries and possibly offer advice.

New Year: Fun seekers want improved economy, better governance in 2020

At the end of the exercise, those that had made progress in their business since collecting the first tranche will receive another N20,000; this evaluation process will again be repeated for the beneficiaries to ascertain progress made in their businesses and receive another tranche.

Vanguard