More than one million Nigerians benefitted from survival fund – Presidency

The Presidency, on Sunday, disclosed that more than one million Nigerians have so far profited from the Survival Fund scheme under Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) of the government.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, stated this in a statement named, ‘N200bn facility for social housing ready as ESP Payroll Support, Artisan, Transport Tracks and Free Business Names Beneficiaries Now Over One Million.’

The Economic Sustainability Plan was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari on June 24, 2020, as a N2.3 trillion incentive plan to address the socio-economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizens of Nigeria.

The statement partly read, “Over one million Nigerians have so far benefitted from the Survival Fund scheme under the Buhari administration’s Economic Sustainability Plan, with about 500,000 Nigerians beneficiaries from the MSMEs Payroll support track, 44,500 beneficiaries under the one-off General MSME Grant, and another 265,425 under the artisan support track.

“It would be recalled that payment to new beneficiaries of the Payroll Support track and the one-time General MSME Grant had commenced at the end of April.

“So far, under the ESP there are now over one million beneficiaries nationwide from the various schemes.”

Regarding the Payroll Support trajectory, Akande declared that there are so far 459,307 successful beneficiaries. Under the scheme, beneficiaries receive payment of the N30,000 or N50,000 grant per month for three months.

Approximately 44,500 successful beneficiaries have so far received payment for the one-off grant of N50,000 each.

He further said that the total number of beneficiaries of the General MSME Grant is likely to increase in the upcoming weeks as the Steering Committee has approved payment to an extra 40,114 successful new beneficiaries.

Additionally, the Vice President disclosed that more than 200,000 businesses have been registered free of charge.

He said, “202,494 businesses have so far benefitted under the ESP Survival Fund formalization support track, which is aimed at registering 250,000 new businesses for free with the Corporate Affairs Commission.

“The formalisation support scheme had commenced on the 26th of October, 2020, with the registration by aggregators (CAC registration agents) across the 36 states and the FCT.

“The MSME Survival Fund, a component under the ESP is designed to support vulnerable Micro Small and Medium Enterprises in meeting their payroll obligations and safeguard jobs in the MSMEs sector.”

Hitherto, he stated, the scheme has saved at least 1.3 million jobs nationwide and had a distinct effect on over 35,000 people in each state.