Kwara State Executive Council has approved a programme to empower at least 30,000 female petty traders with a grant of N20,000 each over the next six months — a social investment measure modelled after a World Bank initiative.
In a presentation to the council on Wednesday, Secretary to the Kwara State Government Prof. Mamman Saba Jubril revealed the programme would be executed under the Kwara State Social Investment Programme while beneficiaries would cut across the 16 local government areas of the state.
He said: “For stimulation of micro, small and medium scale locally-owned businesses, the agency (KWASSIP) deems it necessary to empower the women within the 16 LGAs of Kwara State.
“This is another dimension towards ensuring that the women who ordinarily do not have access to financial facility are availed with financial support through the programme,” according to Jubril.
“It may interest council to note that this programme being domesticated and to be funded by the State Government is a replica of the World Bank project (Nigeria for Women Project). However, the state has applied to the World Bank to include Kwara State among the beneficiary states in Nigeria in order to complement the efforts of the state government.”
To ensure transparency and seamless disbursement of the financial scheme to all the 193 wards in the State, Jubril said the government will collaborate with MTN Nigeria (Mobile Money, MoMo) Service provider, which has over 5,000 payment agents.
He said the programme will gulp N658m with huge benefits on the microeconomic sector in the state.
Council members applauded the plan in turns, saying it would help small businesses grow and address extreme poverty.
The meeting of the council was presided over by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, who declared that the administration is still committed to enhancing the lives of the less fortunate, particularly in terms of financial inclusion.
A military research group had earlier in March, 2022 made similar conclusions on the state’s social safety programme, saying the KWASSIP could lift at least 50,000 people out of extreme poverty within the next five years.
