A total of 5.4 million farmers have been enumerated for the federal government support under the Economic Sustainability Programme (ESP), the federal government intervention programme to cushion the pandemic on Nigerians.
Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Sabo Nanono disclosed that the enumeration which involved geospatial tagging, almost 73,000 N-Power volunteers were trained and 30,000 of them deployed to 774 Local Government Areas as part of the programme for the agriculture sector.
In addition, the enrollment of 2.9 million farmers have been updated to qualify them for funding through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Minister said as they took their turn to brief the Vice-President Yemi Oshibajo who is also the chairman of the ESP committee
Sanono also informed of the ongoing clearing of 3,200 hectares of land for farming in several States including Edo, Plateau, Ekiti, Cross River, Ogun, Kaduna, Kwara, and Osun States while rural road constructions have reached about 28 per cent completion covering 344km, linking about 500 markets across the country.
Othr hgihlights of the meeting between the ministers and heads of agencies and the Osinbajo-led committee include the release of N37 billion for the Survival Fund covering such schemes like N50,000 Payroll Support for three months to over 300,000 beneficiaries, one-time grants of N30,000 to about 100,000 artisans, and 100,000 business name registrations paid for by the Federal Government.
While the Minister of State for Industry, Trade & Investment Ambassador Mariam Katagum reported the progress of the Survival Fund to the Committee, the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele also reported on the bank’s intervention including disbursement of over N192 billion for household/MSMEs grants to 426,000 beneficiaries across the country, with plans to do over N100 billion more in that category named Targeted Credit Facility.
The CBN Governor also disclosed that under the collateral-free Agric-Business/Small & Medium Enterprise Investment Scheme, there are ongoing grants of concessionary loans from between N150,000 to N2.5million of which 27,000 beneficiaries had collected over N106 billion.
The Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami said broadband penetration in the country has moved from 38 per cent last year to 45 per cent while over 170 institutions have been registered to conduct the NIN.
He also said Telcos would be licensed for the enrollment, while over 1060 registration centers have been activated across the country for the NIN. He reports that a total of 56.18million NINs have been collected by mobile network operators.
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