A total of 146,065 Nigerians in 28 states are benefitting from the N30, 000 and N50, 000 grants per month for a period of three months in the current round of Payroll Support track.
The programme is part of the Federal Government’s Survival Fund under the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP).
According to a statement by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Mr Laolu Akande, for current round over N13 billion had been made available for the Payroll Support track and over N2Billion for the General MSME Grant respectively.
Commencement of payment to beneficiaries of the Payroll Support track and the one-time General MSME Grant was announced on Sunday.
This follows approval of the Steering Committee of the MSME’s Survival Fund for payment to successful beneficiaries of the Payroll Support and General MSME Grant tracks.
According to the statement, each beneficiary under this batch of payment will receive the payment of N90, 000 as three-month salary support directly from the Federal Government.
The states include Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bayelsa, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, and Jigawa.
Others are Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, and Zamfara.
This brings a total of 465,820 beneficiaries so far under the Payroll support scheme nationwide.
Under the General MSME Grants track, 46,117 successful beneficiaries in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and 36 States have started receiving payment for the one-off grant of N50, 000 each.
This total makes up 50 percent of the required disbursement per State. Another batch that completes the target is forthcoming.
The total number of beneficiaries in this track is 100,000 spread across the States. The one-off grant of N50, 000 will be given to each qualified MSME as direct cash injection into their enterprise.
The MSME Survival Fund, a component under the ESP is designed to support vulnerable Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in meeting their payroll obligations and safeguard jobs in the MSMEs sector. The scheme is estimated to save not less than 1.3 million jobs across the country and specifically impact over 35,000 individuals per state.
The ESP was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari on June 24, 2020 as a N2.3 trillion stimulus plan to mitigate the socio-economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Nigerians.
The plan was developed by the Economic Sustainability Committee chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who the President also asked to lead its implementation.
