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Small Scale Industrialists Get N10m Lifeline

Daily Trust
Soliu Hamzat
28 June 2007

Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI) FCT chapter yesterday commenced the disbursement of the sum of N10 million micro credit to its members. The money was handed over to the association by National Poverty Eradication Programme for onward disbursement to its members

The disbursement, which was flagged off with Bwari Area Council yesterday, saw about 17 small business operators going home with various amounts of money to further grow the businesses. The disbursement moves to Abuja Municipal Area Council subsequently.

Chairman of the Association, Dr. Abdulaziz Mohammed who coordinated the disbursement appealed to the various area councils in the FCT to take the issue of empowerment of the masses a priority for the nation to achieve its targets of alleviating poverty.

According to Abdulaziz, "For Nigeria to be amongst the top twenty largest economies of the world by the year 2020, our economy must grow consistently on an annual basis of close to ten percent. For this to be achieved there must be a mechanism to give resources to the people to enable them to actively participate in the economic development process."

He called for other partners to borrow a leaf from the efforts of NAPEP and come to the aid of the ordinary man who needs resources to operate small business.

Secretary of NAPEP, FCT, Mrs. Veronica Agugu, assured that the programme would continue to do its best to partner with Associations and cooperative societies that have lofty dreams of empowering the people at the grassroots.

"The National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) has in the last few years been working assiduously to reduce the level of poverty in Nigeria through its intervention programmes and its effort to effectively monitor and coordinate poverty reduction activities of government agencies whose activities impact positively on poverty reduction.

"The micro credit scheme is one of NAPEP's most important intervention programmes. The objective of micro credit scheme is to increase the level of financing available to stat up small businesses in Nigeria. It recognizes that many poor people remain poor because of a lack of access to capital especially because commercial banks are unlikely to lend to poor people without adequate collateral."

Copyright © 2007 Daily Trust

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