By Chijioke Okoronkwo
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says feedback from the field and testimonies indicate that the TraderMoni and MarketMoni beneficiaries are doing very well and are paying back their loans.
Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, in a statement in Abuja, said the vice president had an interaction with newsmen after his assessment visit to markets in Keffi and Masaka towns of Nasarawa State where the TraderMoni and MarketMoni schemes are being disbursed to traders.
The vice president urged beneficiaries of the loan schemes to continue to pay back their loans so they could get more money and become very successful in businessess
“It is going very well; and I am excited to hear the testimonies of the traders who have done so well after getting their first loan.
“It is also exciting to see that they have repaid their loans very quickly, because as you pay back, you are able to get more; when you get N10, 000, and you pay back, you get N15, 000 and it gets to N20, 000, when you repay, all the way to N100, 000, and it is so exciting to see that these traders are doing so well.
“Everybody is keying in already, what we want to do is to expand it so that more traders can get this facility, so we need to do more because at the moment, we have done close to two million but we need to increase the number”.
Osinbajo said the target of the Federal Government in the Next Level was to expand the scheme to cover more traders and also increase the amount received to enable beneficiaries expand their businesses.
According to him, the TraderMoni and MarketMoni schemes will be expanded to include more people in every state.
He said more of the traders would get the TraderMoni and the MarketMoni loans.
“So long as you continue to pay back you will continue to get more money.
“We want to make sure that every petty trader in the market have enough so that they themselves can even employ more people and pay their children’s school fees and also build their own houses.
“As I told you, we are going to expand the scheme so that more people can benefit.”
Earlier at the palace of the Emir of Keffi, Alhaji Shehu Yamusa, Osinbajo said his visit to the State was to assess the disbursement of the TraderMoni and MarketMoni loans to traders in markets across the States.
He said that TraderMoni was the President Muhammadu Buhari’s own way of empowering women and men who were traders.
He said the inventories of the many of the traders were very small as they could be people hawking groundnuts, selling bread and other basic things.
“Most of them don’t have enough capital to improve their businesses. So, what we do is to empower them through the Bank of Industry.
“So, we want to ensure that people who are trading have an opportunity and that opportunity is provided when we are able to give them capital as part of this TraderMoni scheme. So, that is why we are here.”
On the Emir’s appeal about improving educational standards, the vice president said Buhari was determined to improve both access and quality of education to all Nigerians regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds.
He said that one of the other things that would the traditional might be happy to hear was the President’s determination to the question of education.
“On June 20, while speaking to hovernors when he inaugurated the National Economic Council, he made the point that the Federal Government will enforce, along with the State governments, the law on free and compulsory education of the first nine years of the child’s school life.
“It is a very important thing because we all know that education is the key to the economic success, the key to self-realisation and the key that enables any person live a dignified life.
” So, we are extremely concerned on how to improve education; Technical education in particular, I think that it is very important.
“As a matter of fact, under our N-Power scheme we already have a number of technical education schemes going on. We have what we call N-Build which is technical education for persons involved in the building industry (tillers, brick layers etc). We also have training for extension workers, persons who will provide extension service.
” There is the one for persons involved in technical training like carpenter, electricians and many others,” he said.
He added that the Federal and state governments were committed to doing more in terms of technical education.
Osinbajo said there was also collaboration in supporting the states especially in making primary education and first three years of secondary education free and compulsory as well as in the education of young women.
In his remarks, Chindo commended the vice president for his show of concern and interest in the welfare of the people of Nasarawa State and Keffi in particular.
The traditional ruler appealed to the Federal Government to review the nation’s education curriculum to integrate vocational and technical education to address youth unemployment.
