The Minister, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management & Social Development, Hajiya Sadia Umar Farouq has said Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0) was set up to support vulnerable and low income Nigerians.
Hajia Sadiya who made the statement at the roll-out GEEP 2.0 in Porthacourt River State, explained that “we are gathered here today to witness the consolidation of one of the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) designed by the Federal Government under the Leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari to empower and encourage the vulnerable people in our society”.
“This programme is being implemented in close partnership with the State Government and this effort is a clear demonstration of our collective commitment to address poverty which today is the core developmental challenge confronting us as a people”.
“We are here to officially Roll-Out the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0) in River State. A programme designed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for vulnerable and low-income Nigerians who are involved in some sort of commercial activity/capacity but have never had the opportunity to access loans”.
“It is meant to give priority to the most vulnerable in our society e.g. widows, youths, disabled and the displaced amongst others. GEEP is captured in three signature schemes namely the TraderMoni loan of N50,000, targeted towards uplifting under-privileged and marginalized youths between the ages of 18-40 years in Nigeria, MarketMoni an empowerment programme designed for under privileged and marginalized women between the ages of 18 – 55 in our society, specifically targeted towards Female headed households e.g., Widows, divorcees amongst other vulnerable groups, then the FarmerMoni loan scheme which is equally designed to provide agricultural inputs between N50,000 – N300,000 to rural farmers”.
Hajia Sadia said after the creation of the Ministry in 2019, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme was restructured to have a top-bottom representation from the Federal, State and Local Government levels, respectively.
“In the first phase of GEEP programme about 1,142,783 potential beneficiaries where registered by the COMO’S across the 774 LGAs in Nigeria out of which 14,193 potential beneficiaries were registered in Rivers State across the 23 LGAs, after verification was done, about 1,502 beneficiaries were selected. These selected beneficiaries are currently under-going enumeration and today I have gracefully come to Roll-Out the programme in the “Treasure Base of the Nation” River State. However, successful beneficiaries of the GEEP proagramme has start receiving credit alert from Access bank by God’s grace”.
The Minister further explained that in a bid to onboard more beneficiaries on to the GEEP programme, the Ministry has commenced the second phase of GEEP registration across the 774 LGAs saying that the second phase of GEEP implementation is expected to capture more vulnerable groups for the purpose of uplifting them out of abject poverty and to reduce unemployment in the society.
The River State governor, Nyeson Wike in response thanked the federal government for always remembering the poor and vulnerable in our society.
He acknowledged that rivers numbers of GEEP beneficiaries is very low and pleaded with the GEEP Desk officers at the local government level to do the right thing at the phase 11 GEEP registration which is on going to avoid last mistakes.
