SMEDAN begins grant for 10,400 small businesses

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) has begun the N50,000 Conditional Grant Scheme (CGS) for 10,400 micro enterprises in the FCT, Kaduna, Yobe, Abia and Delta states.

Speaking at the flag off held in Abuja, the Director-General of SMEDAN, Dr. Dikko Umaru Radda, said the scheme may reach half of the 10,400 micro enterprises projected in the 2020 budget due to prevailing economic realities in the country.

Radda revealed that as at 2017, Nigeria had about 41.47 million micro enterprises employing about 56.73m people.

In 2017, SMEDAN did the pilot scheme in Katsina, Gombe, Ebonyi, Oyo, Akwa Ibom and Benue State.

The SMEDAN boss said the Federal Government would extend the scheme to other states of the Federation subject to availability of funds.

Radda said the scheme will promote the activities of micro enterprises across the country and this would be done by providing the micro enterprises with entrepreneurship training, business name registration, micro insurance and micro financial grant of N50,000 each.

Radda explained that it was to formalize the informal sector and make them easily targeted for government intervention.

The Director, Special Duties of SMEDAN, Safiya Balla, said the beneficiaries would open accounts with the partner bank.