The Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) has disbursed a second round of grants to 362 beneficiaries in Edo State whose businesses were negatively impacted by COVID-19 in five local government areas across the three senatorial districts of the State.
Prompt News reports that the NG-CARES is a 750 million US dollars support operation from the World Bank with the objective to “expand access to livelihood support, food security services and grants for poor and vulnerable households and firms” to cushion the effects of the pandemic.
Each state of the federation got $20m while the FCT received $15m.
Immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, who signed the grant agreement on behalf of the federal government, chaired the Federal CARES Steering Committee (FCSC).
NG-CARES had disbursed the first round of grants under the Muhammadu Buhari administration, whose tenure expired on May 29, 2023.
Announcing the second round of disbursement of the grants in Edo State, in a statement, the Head, Delivery Platform for DLI 1.3 (Livelihood Support) under the programme, Ms Flora Bossey, said the beneficiaries were selected in accordance with the guidelines of the programme.
She noted that the beneficiaries were verified and enrolled in the beneficiary database.
She said the beneficiaries for the grant support were selected from Egor, Ovia North East, Esan North East, Owan West and Etsako West LGAs bringing the total number of beneficiaries to 524 since the commencement of the programme.
She stated that the beneficiaries were small business operators with existing businesses, comprising youths and vulnerable groups such as widows drawn from eligible trade areas.
According to her, “As part of the guidelines for the project implementation, the beneficiaries received training on livelihood support and soft skills, while the grants which ranged from N140,000 to N200,000 was paid directly into their bank accounts.”
Eligible businesses included fashion designing, petty trading, artisans, hairdressing, shoe making, and tie and dye, among others.
Recall that at a Townhall meeting on May 10, 2023 at Protea Hotel, Benin, where the immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning (Agba) interacted with beneficiaries of the programme in South-South States, he had said NG-CARES had impacted over two million direct beneficiaries countrywide.
He spoke against the backdrop of the review of the NG-CARES based on the report of the first round of assessment of the programme implementation conducted by an independent verification agent.
Agba had said that “in furtherance of effort to scale up its programme under the social protection agenda and to respond swiftly and appropriately to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Government accessed a World Bank concessional loan in the sum of US$750 million on behalf of the 36 States and FCT to stimulate the local economy and increase households’ consumption among the poor and vulnerable segment of the society.
“To ensure that implementation of the NG-CARES Programme is fast tracked in line with the Economic Sustainability Plan and cognizant of the peculiarities of the country, each State and FCT were given the flexibility to select a minimum of 4 from the list of 11 Disbursement Linked Indicators.
“This flexibility seeks to improve the partnership between the States and Federal governments in the delivery of pro-poor interventions using existing platforms at the sub-National level.”
He said that the town hall meeting was initiated by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning to promote open and transparent governance where citizens’ participatory engagement was further strengthened within the framework of (immediate past) President Buhari’s Government of social accountability.
