FCTA Disburses CARES’ Grants To Small Firms

Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA)  through the Abuja Enterprise Agency (AEA) has commenced disbursement and training session for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) under the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (CARES) programme.

The acting managing director and chief executive officer of Abuja Enterprise Agency (AEA) Chudi Ugwuada-Ezirigwe, during the flag-off ceremony in Abuja,  said the agency serves as the delivery platform for Result Area 3 of the initiative on behalf of the FCT Administration.

Ugwuada-Ezirigwe said since the inception of the FCT CARES programme, they had been committed to its success through a range of comprehensive and strategic efforts.

He said their efforts included engaging and raising awareness among over 2,000 key stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem such as SME associations, cooperatives, area councils, traditional rulers and others.

“Other efforts include extending our reach across all six area councils of the FCT by conducting sensitisation visits to area council chairmen, traditional rulers, local market organisations, focal persons and other significant community figures. Conducting media tours across television and radio platforms to further promote the programme, training enumerators on the use of applications and the objectives of the FCT CARES project across all six area councils, fully deploying the AEA MSME enumeration platform to collect data on MSMEs in the FCT, assessing the data to identify eligible firms for the programme and conducting verification visits to all identified participants,” he said.