The Presidency has said that over one million Nigerians have benefitted from the Survival Fund scheme under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s Economic Sustainability Plan.
This was disclosed on Sunday by the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, in a statement titled, ‘N200bn facility for social housing ready as ESP Payroll Support, Artisan, Transport Tracks and Free Business Names Beneficiaries Now Over One Million.’
Recall that on June 24, 2020, President Buhari approved the Economic Sustainability Plan, as a N2.3 trillion stimulus plan to tackle the socio-economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic on Nigerians.
Part of the statement 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.”
Akande said so far, there are 459,307 successful beneficiaries under the Payroll Support track; and beneficiaries receive payment of the N30,000 or N50,000 grant per month for three months.
According to the statement, about 44,500 successful beneficiaries have so far received payment for the one-off grant of N50,000 each.
The presidency further assured that the total number of beneficiaries of the General MSME Grant is expected to increase in the coming weeks as the Steering Committee has approved payment to an additional 40,114 successful new beneficiaries.
Akande 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 formalization 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.”
So far, he said, the scheme has saved at least 1.3 million jobs across the country and had a specific impact on over 35,000 individuals per state.