On Thursday, the Federal Government announced that by the end of July, N150 billion in loans would be disbursed to manufacturers and micro, small, and medium-sized businesses.
Furthermore, it revealed that in the 774 local government areas across the nation, 60% of the projected one million beneficiaries of the Presidential Conditional award had been granted a N50,000 financial award with no responsibilities to repay it.
The most recent details were disclosed in a post on Thursday by Doris Uzoka-Anite, the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, via her official X account.
As a component of the Presidential Palliatives Programme, the Federal Government introduced the Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme in December 2023 with the goal of assisting businesses in navigating the economic downturn brought on by government policies.
The fund allocates N75 billion to manufacturing and another N75 billion to MSMEs.
The minister pointed out that the fund was established to assist Nigerian companies in navigating the challenging economic conditions because the government is well aware of the current business environment.
She said, “To all applicants of the Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme who are yet to be paid, thank you for your continued patience. The disbursement process is still ongoing, and we have allocated about 60 per cent of the 1 million grants.
“You can track the number of beneficiaries per LGA paid so far on grant.fedgrantandloan.gov.ng/learn-more/dis.
“We are also at the final stages of vetting for the MSME and Manufacturing loans. Applications remain open, and disbursement will begin by July ending.”
She expressed her gratitude to those who applied for the Conditional Grant Scheme but have not yet received payment, emphasising that her team has put in countless hours to make sure this procedure is accurate and equitable.
In response to grieving applicants, she clarified that a computer-generated random selection process was used for the selection process rather than the application order.
She said that although the ministry had anticipated finishing all one million disbursements by now, problems like false entries, duplicate applications, and inaccurate or missing data had caused the process to be delayed.
The PUNCH exclusively revealed last month that 402,283 recipients received N20.11 billion in payments from the government directly into their bank accounts using their Bank Verification Numbers.
