FG Begins Funding Of 1.5million Market Women With N75bn Non-Interest Loan

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, announced on Tuesday that the Federal Government is set to provide a non-interest loan of 75B to Market Women.

VerseNews reports that according to the Minister, FG will give N50,000 to 1.5 million market women under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program.

This initiative aims to boost their capital and foster business expansion.

She stated that the N75 billion market women fund, to be named the Iyaloja Fund for underprivileged female traders, is set to be inaugurated on October 17th.

During an advocacy visit to the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, the minister said in Abuja that the program would unfold in three phases, with the first phase set to benefit 500,000 individuals.

“We will start right away with the GEEP Programme; we have Iyaloja Funds, which is equivalent to Market Women Money. We have the Jaga Funds, which is a capital fund for traders; and Farmers’ Money, which is called the Hugo Fund. The Farmer’s Money will be provided to the poorest of the farmers to enable them to go into the next farming season.

“The Iyaloja Fund will be providing for poor market traders in the market, helping them to improve their capital and expand their businesses. These are non-interest loans given to these persons.”

“This program is not the one you give contracts to people to build houses. The communities will build their houses by themselves. We would just provide the enabling environment. And they are expected to source for everything they will use to build that house locally, including the furniture in the house,” the minister said.