FG begins disbursement of new MSME grants to 146,065 successful beneficiaries

The Federal Government on Thursday said a new batch of 146,065 successful beneficiaries from 28 States have started receiving payment of the MSMEs Survival Fund’s Payroll support track and the one-off General MSME Grant.

According to a statement by the presidency, over N13billion has been made available for the Payroll Support track, and over N2billion for the General MSME Grant respectively.

The statement says for the Payroll Support track, where beneficiaries are supported with a N30,000 or N50,000 grant per month for a period of three months have so far supported a total number of 465,820 persons.

Each beneficiary under this batch of payment will receive the payment of N90,000 as three-months’ salary support directly from the Federal Government.

The scheme is estimated to save not less than 1.3 million jobs across the country and specifically impact over 35,000 individuals per state.

The states include Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bayelsa, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, and Jigawa.

Others are Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, and Zamfar

The MSME Survival Fund, a component under the Buhari Administration’s Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) is designed to support vulnerable Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in meeting their payroll obligations, and to safeguard jobs in the MSMEs sector.

The ESP was approved by President Buhari on June 24, 2020, as a N2.3 trillion stimulus plan to mitigate the socio-economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Nigerians.

The Plan was developed by the Economic Sustainability Committee chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who the President also asked to lead its implementation.