By Precious Chimezie

 

Small and Medium Enterprises operators in Ogun State will have course to rejoice as the Bank of Industry under the Federal Government’s Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme has supported over 7,000 people across 130 associations in the state to the tune over N450 million.This was disclosed by the Development Finance Institution (DFI).

Speaking during the BoI’s presentation of loan certificates to beneficiaries of the GEEP programme tagged “Marketmoni alert train don land, Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, stated that the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises were a major catalyst for economic growth and development of big industries.

According to him, the MSMEs in the country had not been able to reach their potential due to lack of access to funds.

In the vein, the Managing Director, BoI, Olukayode Pitan, said that the objective of the event was to share with associations and cooperative leaders the benefits and how to access the loans.

Represented by the bank’s Executive Director, Micro Enterprise, Mrs. Toyin Adeniji, he said, according to statistics, over 80 per cent of micro enterprises lacked access to affordable credit, adding that even when loans were available, they came at very high cost to the borrower.

“Based on this premise, the federal government set up a social intervention programme to provide access to affordable micro credit to existing micro businesses in Nigeria. The GEEP provides non-interest rates loans up to N100,000 and N50,000 to first timers in four target segments which include market women, traders, artisans and farmers,” he said.