Beneficiaries of ‘Trader Moni,’ one of the programmes of the Federal government’s National Social Investment Programme designed to reduce poverty in Nigeria are reluctant to repay the loan.
The Kwara State Focal Person for the NSIP, Hajia Bashirah Abdulrazaq-Sanusi, stated this on Wednesday.
Abdulrazaq-Sanusi said that about 10,000 people benefitted from “Trader Moni” programme in the state with over N1.3bn disbursed to them,
She, however, lamented that the people were not willing to repay the loan.
“Poor masses are not ready to repay the loan after collection because of the attitude of Nigerians to anything from the government, thinking it is national cake. Also, those that disbursed the money do not have records of beneficiaries like phone numbers and addresses, thus, making it difficult to track them for repayment,” Abdulrazaq-Sanusi said.
She explained that the programme was designed to provide soft loans to boost small scale businesses in the markets and was flagged off by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo in 2019 to support women with N10,000 as soft loans to be paid back, after which they would enjoy the next stage of N50,000.
Similarly, Abdulrazaq-Sanusi lamented that over 15,000 beneficiaries of N-Power Programme were showing lukewarm attitude to the state government programme of reabsorbing them into the MDAs.
She said following the termination of N-Power Programme by the Federal government in July this year, Kwara State government replicated the youth empowerment programme in the state, codenamed K-Power, in order not to throw beneficiaries in to the labour market after exiting N-Power.
– Punch