A member of the Steering Committee of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Survival Fund and Guaranteed Offtake Scheme, Ubadigbo Okonkwo has hinted that beneficiaries, who default in meeting their own part of the agreement, would be prosecuted.
Okonkwo, who said that several enumeration exercises were carried out to get the required number of beneficiaries in the zone, explained that “At the national level, we had some deviants cases (a total of 19, 928), where MSMEs that were paid the initial mobilisation of 30percent for GOS failed to supply the items; thereby negating the bonds they signed with the Federal Government,” he said.
He further said that STEERCO had directed the appropriate agencies to commerce the process of recovering such monies and possibly prosecute the defaulters, who he said blocked the chances of others.
He gave the warning at a Town hall meeting in Enugu, organised for the beneficiaries in the South East zone of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Survival Fund and Guaranteed Offtake Scheme.
Beneficiaries from Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo were in attendance. It was aimed at sensitising the informal sector and the beneficiaries on the importance of the Federal Government intervention.
The meeting was also to highlight the scheme’s achievements and to receive beneficiaries’ feedback on all tracks of the scheme.
The forum was further used to present certificates to the beneficiaries of the five tracks of interventions and also informed defaulters that STEERCO would go after them.
Okonkwo, who also is a member of the MSME Survival Fund, in his keynote address, said that the beneficiaries were under the five tracks of implementation, which include payroll support track, General MSME grants, Artisan and Transport track and CAC formalisation support track from the South East region, which comprise 174,215 beneficiaries.
“Under the Guaranteed Offtake Scheme 19,928 beneficiaries failed to deliver their items after receiving the 30 percent mobilisation fee, thereby breaching the contract with the Federal Government,” he said.
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According to him, “The following statistics were achieved: payroll 64,533 benefited, MSME grants Scheme 11,737 benefited, Artisan and Transport scheme 61046 benefited, CAC formalisation support scheme 34,331, while in the Guaranteed Offtake Scheme, 2538 benefited.”
Speaking to BusinessDay, the Enugu State Focal Person Arinze Chilo-Offiah, who also is the SPA to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi on MSMEs, said that about 32,285 from Enugu State benefited from the intervention programmes which he said was borne out of the need to stimulate the economy post lockdown, especially for small and medium-scale businesses and self-employed individuals who were previously gainfully employed, by creating production opportunities for MSMEs and providing conditional grants to distressed business and self-employed individuals who have been strained with payment of salaries post-COVID19.
He however, lamented that despite the huge success recorded by the programme, there were also some difficulties encountered in the South East geo-political zone. Such challenges, according to him included lack of trust by beneficiaries as it requires obtaining their details including BVN which Okonkwo said brought about initial apathy.
“There was a heavy reliance on the use of information communication technology, for transparency and traceability, which also, left the programme susceptible to infiltration by internet scammers,” he also said.
He also listed multiple applications using forged documents, fake beneficiaries and attempts to bribe officials to bypass the process as some of the initial challenges encountered.
Some of the beneficiaries, who spoke with BusinessDay, commended the Federal Government for the intervention and called for more of such programmes.
Darliton Nnamani, a Keke operator, said the money came when he had nothing in the midst of the Covid-19 challenge and he used it to start a small trading.
Odi Nwosu, chairman of Cotex Industry and national deputy president of NASME, said that many people from Anambra State benefited from the intervention and called on the government not to make it a one-off thing.
