…As Amazon promises to train 10,000 this year

By Emmanuel Elebeke

The Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC says it has disbursed N40 billion on its Export Expansion Facility Programme, EEFP.

The Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Council, Dr. Ezra Yakuzak disclosed this at the formal disengagement of the Export Expansion Facility Programme, EEFP, a Special Purpose Vehicle constituted in 2021 to activate and kick start the Export Expansion facility Programme of Federal government.

The N40 billion grants, according to him, were disbursed in the last one year to some firms and farmers who operate within the agriculture and export ecosystem, out of N50 billion relief grant released by federal government.
Some of the beneficiaries of the grant include: 281 companies that benefited from the COVID Grant relief; 1105 companies from the EDF; 84 women owned businesses; 100 youths and women trained on high-in-demand cloud engineering skills.

Other interventions executed under the EEFP programme include: 2000 farmers trained in good agriculture and food safety standards; 500 women trained in exporting procedures and undergoing mentorship and handholding with experts; support of 13 Common Facility and Human Capital Development Centres and support of 8 domestic export warehouses and establishment of 5 Cold Storage facilities among others.

Through the instrumentality of the EEFP, Yakuzak said tremendous impact had so far been made in the non-oil export sector and the nation’s economy in general.

‘‘What happened today is the end the EEFP programme. Today marks the end of one of the programmes of NEPC and so they are handing over the programme to NEPC and the NEPC will move on and monitor, evaluate and supervise the rest of the programme.

‘‘Some firms were given grants and the grant has made impacted on the society, especially on the non-oil export sector. The programme has impacted a lot on the economy of Nigeria and on individuals who are independent of NEPC.

‘‘Some beneficiaries of the scheme were trained and are now sitting directly on Amazon, with good agricultural practices which has never happened before. From the programme, over 1,000 farmers have been trained on goods agricultural practices and other programmes, so that instances of rejection in the global market will drastically reduce.

‘‘We realized that our products are being rejected abroad and we decide to build the capacity of our exporters to make sure that these products are well produced and packaged, so that instances of rejection are reduced and at the end of the day, the whole thing will now impact on non-oil sector and Nigerian economy.’’

‘‘In all my years of experience in NEPC, if there is anything that has impacted on the economy, it is the EEFP programme. With this programme , some moribund companies were revitalized and some people regained their jobs and of course, the economy picked up in non-oil sector.’’

On what expect from now the programme is winding down, the NEPC ED said the Council is going to monitor the beneficiaries and make sure they play by the rules and also ensure that government gets value for money.

‘‘The fund disbursed is not a free money but grant. We are going to ensure that those conditions we put on the ground are such that beneficiaries must perform. And we will ensure that they perform in line with the conditions put on ground. We also want to ensure that they do what they said they will do.

The entire relief grant fund was N50 billion and so far about N40 billion has been disbursed.’’

On whether the Council would disburse more funds this year, he said, ‘‘it will depend on availability of fund, we wish to have everybody on board.’’

The NEPC by its statutory mandate is the lead agency for export development activities in the country.

Under the auspices of the Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan of the Federal government, the EEFP is expected to afford the NEPC additional capacity to support existing and aspiring exporters, while executing programmes that will have a lasting impact on the export sector.

It will be recalled that the EEFP programme came up a year ago and consultants were engaged to kick start the programme for a duration of one year.

Giving an overview of the programme, the Programme Coordinator, EEFP, Maureen Ideozu said the NEPC through the special purpose vehicle, has empowered Nigerian exporters to export Nigerian products directly without the usual hiccups of going through Ghana and sub-standard issues.
‘‘We have awarded grants to people who operate in logistics of export warehouses, export cold storage, also supported common facility centres in difference centres. Because we have addressed our problem with standards, we no longer have to go through Ghana to export. Through this kind of engagement, we are able to export directly

”We have common facility centre, where target sectors would go to use the facilities to standardize their products to be globally competitive. Our target is to support those in non-oil ecosystem so that they can compete in global market freely. What we are also trying to do is to have a reservoir of knowledge management, which is domicile in NEPC, as an inter-dependence scheme.

‘‘We have beneficiary chapters, it tells who they are, how much they received, where they are and with 30 State branches, six regional centres and 600 staff capacity, NEPC can follow up from where we stopped and make sure that government gets value for its money.’’

In his own remarks, the CEO of Nexportrade Houses limited, Chief Ede Dafinone, said, ‘‘Nigeria is already blazing the trail globally through the Nollywood. ‘‘Our films are being shown in countries even where they do not speak English. On music front, there has been incredible upsurge over the last two years, there have been these international stars like Wiskid, Banaboy and Davido competing at another level

‘‘Outside the sexy sector, we have traditional export like share-butter, cocoa, rubber and other products which NEPC had put modalities for their export.’’

Dafinone, who identified land border closure as a major hindrance to export of local goods called for improved bi-lateral cooperation among African nations to enhance free export of goods across their borders.

The representative of Amazon, a leading online shopping, Nduka Ude said their partnership with NEPC had paid off through the EEFP scheme.

With many Nigerian exporters now sitting on Amazon, he assured that the company would train 10,000 more Nigerians this year in addition to 1,000 trained last year.