vulnerable, low-income persons in Katsina 

By Ibrahim Hassan-Wuyo 

The Federal Government has resolved to continue uplifting the poor and vulnerable persons out of poverty and has registered 59,161 peasants in President  Muhammadu Buhari’s Katsina State as beneficiaries of the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0).

While at the launch of the programme, the Minister of Humanitarian, Social Development and Disaster Management, Hajiya Saadiya Umar Faruk said the present Government is committed towards improving the welfare of the vulnerable and low-income Nigerians. 

She explained at the official Launching of the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0) that the programme was designed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for the vulnerable and low-income Nigerians.

“The programme is designed mainly for those who are involved in some sort of commercial activity, and capacity, but who have never had the opportunity to access loans,” she said.

“It is meant to give priority to the most vulnerable in our society, eg widows, youth, disabled and the displaced amongst others.”

“GEEP is captured in three signature schemes namely the TraderMoni loan of N50,000, targeted towards uplifting under-privileged and marginalized youths between the ages of 18-40 years in Nigeria”, she said.

“MarketMoni is an empowerment programme designed for under privileged and marginalized women in our society specifically targeted towards female headed households e.g widows, divorcees amongst other vulnerable groups.”

“And then the FarmerMoni loan scheme which is equally designed to provide agricultural inputs worth up to a maximum of N300,000 to rural farmers”, she said.

“GEEP has been restructured to have a top-bottom representation from the Federal, State and Local Government levels respectively,” she added.

She stressed that in the first phase of GEEP programme about 1,142,783 potential beneficiaries were registered by the COMO’S across the 774 LGAs in Nigeria out of which 59, 161 potential beneficiaries were registered in Katsina State across the 34 LGAs, of which verification was done where about 13,000 beneficiaries were selected. 

The minister said the selected beneficiaries are currently under-going enumeration and would immediately start receiving credit alert from Access Bank by God’s  grace “In Shaa Allah”.

“Very soon the second phase of GEEP registration and official date will be communicated, where more vulnerable groups would  be captured for the purpose of uplifting them out of abject poverty,” the Minister said.