Edo State government has disbursed first tranche of the CBN-Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Fund (MSMEDF) to 10,000 entrepreneurs in the state.
BusinessDay reports that the state governor, Adams Oshiomhole, who personally presented cheques to beneficiaries, however, failed to disclose how much disbursed in the first tranche.
Oshiomhole said the fund was to help solve problems that afflict a lot of small-scale businesses, especially access to credit, saying, “Today, we are going to distribute the first tranche, and this is not the end of the facility. For those who haven’t benefitted from this first round, the applications are still open for us to receive more application
“What we are trying to do is to help you solve the problems that afflict a lot of small scale businesses, namely access to credit. I hope having made the fund available you will also use it strictly for the purpose for which it was meant. A journey of a million miles begins with one correct step. Let it be said that today, you made the first step, and hopefully in the very near future, you will get there.”
Earlier, Godwin Obaseki, chairman of Edo State Economic Team, said the scheme was a grassroots empowerment initiative designed to provide access to funds for small business operators.
Obaseki said the event titled ‘Grassroots Empowerment Initiative of the Edo State Government’ was a N2 billion fund that had been designed by the Federal Government in collaboration with the state to give micro, medium and small enterprises money for their businesses.
He added that the facility was to enable small and micro businesses be included in the state financial system, noting that the fund had been structured deliberately to go round the 18 LGAs of the state, using the micro-finance banks located in each local government.
According to Obaseki, “these funds have been made available to members of cooperatives who can borrow as much as N5 million for their cooperatives, for individuals who can borrow between N50,000 and N500,000; and also for medium businesses who can borrow up to N10 million
“Working with all the micro-finance banks in Edo State, we screened over 30,000 applications, and we are happy to announce that we have approved through the micro-finance banks over 10,000 applicants for this scheme.
“Of the 10,000 people who are qualified, 8,000 of them are women. The different businesses that are involved include petty trading, distribution business, agriculture and people who are processing agricultural commodities,” he said.
