The Federal Capital Territory (FCT), through the Abuja Enterprise Agency (AEA), has commenced the disbursement of N195 million care-grants to over 800 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) owners in the six area councils of the territory.
The acting managing director/chief executive officer of AEA, Mallam Shehu Abdulkadir, who made this known at the official flag off of FCT-AEA Cares Grant disbursement on Friday, said the project was in line with President Muhammad Buhari’s agenda of creating 100 million jobs.
He said they believed that the project would provide an avenue towards the recovery of SMEs negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby creating more jobs and wealth for the country.
“The disbursement of grants under the FCT-AEA project is a World Bank-assisted project that is aimed at supporting SMEs towards their recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. As we all know, the pandemic caused a lot of destruction in all sectors of the economy. Abuja Enterprise Agency is handling the NTS project which is aimed at supporting enterprises that are negatively affected by the pandemic.
“We have disbursed grants in three folds today. The first is the credit grant for those that have access to the loan during the pandemic. The second is the operation grant to support operational activities like utilities, payroll and the likes and thirdly, technology-enhancement grants. The pandemic caused so many destructions in the ecosystem and without technology, businesses cannot be taken to the next level. That is why one of the aspects of the grant is technical support,” he said.
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