Federal Govt Launches GEEP To Lift The Vulnerable In Katsina

Minister of humanitarian affairs, social development and disaster management, Hajiya Saadiya Umar Farouq has said the federal government remains committed to improving the welfare of the vulnerable and low-income Nigerians.

She spoke at the launch of the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0) in Daura in Katsina State.

The minister said the programme was designed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for the vulnerable and low-income Nigerians who are involved in some sort of commercial activity but have never had the opportunity to access loans.

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

“GEEP is captured in three signature schemes namely the Trader Moni  loan of N50,000, targeted towards uplifting under-privileged and marginalized youths between 18 and 40 years in Nigeria, Market Moni 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, then the Farmer Moni loan scheme  which is equally designed to  provide agricultural inputs worth up to a maximum of N300,000 to rural farmers,” the minister explained.

According to her, GEEP has been restructured to have a top-bottom representation from the federal, state and local government levels respectively, saying 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 after which verification was done and about 13,000 beneficiaries were selected.

The minister said these selected beneficiaries are currently under-going enumeration and they will start receiving credit alert from Access Bank soon.

Farouq said very soon the second phase of GEEP registration and official date will be communicated, whereby more vulnerable groups will be captured for the purpose of uplifting them out of abject poverty.