Over 20,000 to benefit from conditional grant scheme in Borno

Borno Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, on Friday launched the 2021 Nationwide Conditional Grant Scheme (CGS) provided by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, (SMEDAN) in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.

About 2,160 entrepreneurs are expected to benefit from the scheme with each getting N50,000 to enable small scale entrepreneurship combined with capacity building, workspace, technology and delivery of post-intervention support services. 

Zulum commended and thanked SMEDAN and the Federal Government for the choice of Borno.

“We are here today witnessing the flag off of this very important scheme to 2,160 beneficiaries to the Micro Enterprises platform. It is common knowledge that insurgency in Borno State has brought untold hardship to our people and Small enterprises have suffered the most. The most important thing is not only the disbursement of grants, but financial inclusion”, Zulum said

Government, he said, was committed to creating more employment opportunities to the teaming unemployed youths and to expand their sources of income, especially the women by reducing unemployment rate to the barest minimum in the state, Zulum concluded. 

SMEDAN’s Director General, Dr. Dikko Umaru Radda, said the agency chose Borno State as the focal point of the flag off for the entire nation to complement the state’s efforts at transforming the SMSE sector while coping with impacts of crises in the region in the last 12 years.

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The DG further explained that the objective of the Scheme includes moving micro enterprises from the informal to the formal sector, creating jobs, wealth and alleviating poverty in the society which is capable of reducing insecurity in the country.

He further added that the objective also includes enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises towards meeting national, regional and global standards, improving the internally generated revenue of the three tiers of government across the country; thereby reducing over-dependence on oil revenue and improving the human, technological and financial capacity of operators of micro enterprises.

Meanwhile, Governor Babagana Umara Zulum also launched the Borno State E-commerce platform developed and adopted by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation during the flag off of SMEDAN’s conditional grant scheme.

SMEDAN’s Director General, Dr. Dikko Umaru Radda was commended by the state government for the initiative.
The Borno E-commerce platform was designed by the state’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation on the Android Operating System.  

Zulum said his administration was committed to developing business enterprises in the state, especially through engaging several youths in various employment platforms to make them self-reliant by disbursement of more than 3 billion naira.

The governor also noted that the administration has invested in many new vocational training centres and has revived old ones to rekindle SMSEs in the state by establishing sustainable businesses of their own.

The governor announced that a sustainability development agency will be created in the near future with the aim of developing a vanguard for rural industrialization and poverty reduction to enhance the livelihood of the people.

The governor concluded by urging the SMSEs artisans and technicians to register with Borno State E-commerce in order to explore the various economic opportunities and have the knowledge on advertisement and other technologies in order to boost their trade. 

Zulum also recalled his recent trip to the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and the Nigerian Export Processing Zone Authority (NEPZA) in Abuja to attract investment opportunities to the state as the governor announced the application for the resuscitation of the Banki Free Trade Zone. 

In his welcome address, the Commissioner Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr. Babagana Malumbe, said that the platform was innovated in line with Governor Zulum’s 10 Pact Agenda and 25 Years Development Plan towards formalizing the small scale enterprises and reducing unemployment and federal government’s digitalization process.