A total of 15, 246 youths in Kwara State have benefitted from the N13.3bn disbursed by the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) under the National Youth Empowerment Programme (N-Power).
Speaking with journalists, the state focal person of the programme, Hajia Bashirah Abdulrazaq, said batch A beneficiaries of the programme were engaged for a period of 42 months and were paid N7.4bn.
She said the batch B beneficiaries spent about 24 months and were paid the sum of N5.7bn.
She said: “Non-graduates received the sum of N10,000 every month and were engaged for a period of 24 months with the sum of over N24m spent.”
She said the state government has replicated the youth empowerment programme in the state, codenamed K-Power, in order not to throw beneficiaries into the labour market after exiting the N-Power.
Hajia Abdulrazaq, who also said about 10,000 people benefitted from the Trader moni programme in the state with over N1.3bn disbursed to them, lamented that beneficiaries were not willing to repay.
“Poor masses are not ready to repay the loan after collection because of the attitude of Nigerians to anything from government thinking it is a national cake.
“Also, those that disbursed the money do not have records of beneficiaries like phone numbers and addresses, thus, making it difficult to track them for repayment.
“The programme is designed to provide soft loans to boost small scale businesses in the markets which Vice President Yemi Osinbajo flagged off sometime last year to support women with N10,000 as soft loans to be paid back and then enjoy the next stage of N50,000.
“Unfortunately, many beneficiaries didn’t pay back or the channel for payment was not identified, therefore, beneficiaries could not fulfill their pledges. The component is going through restructuring to seeing it achieves its objectives,” she said.
Hajia Abdulrazaq said the state government has also replicated the NSIP scheme, tagged Kwara State Social Investment Programme, (KWASSIP).
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