Isa Umar Gusau
5 November 2008
Maiduguri — Thirty six cooperative societies from different local government areas of Borno State have so far secured over N20 million loans under the Village Economic Development Solution, VEDS and Capacity Widening programmes, introduced by the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP).
This was disclosed by the chairman and chief executive officer of a micro finance company, Kalef Ventures, Alhaji Abba Kale, whose company operates under NAPEP's multi partner machine fund initiative introduced under President Umaru Musa Yar'adua's renewed drive to fight poverty in Nigeria.
Kale said his company had disbursed over N20 million naira to the cooperatives after they met the criteria set out for pre-qualification to benefit from the loan package which they are expected to repay after two years of establishing small scale businesses. He noted the cooperatives got amounts between the ranges of N500, 000 up to N2 million meant to assist their members with start up capital for those under the VEDS programme or to help those with existing businesses to grow bigger under the capacity widening initiative so that they can create employment opportunities to other persons in the state.
Alhaji Abba Kale said that the cooperatives consist of members engaged into fish farming, animal production, poultry farming, cattle fattening food selling, irrigation, pure water production, cyber café businesses, perfume making, block making, rice milling, canoe construction amongst many others
He explained that to qualify for the poverty alleviation package, people engaged into a common business and desirous of securing NAPEP's assistance in the programme, must form a cooperative society with not less than 10 credible members, register with the Borno state ministry of poverty and youths empowerment to obtain a verifiable certificate of registration, obtain a verifiable letter of introduction from a village district head, write a verifiable proposal on their business intention, make down payments of 10 percent of the amount to be given to them after which a joint implementation committee of NAPEP in the state would recommend the cooperative to be given the loan package spread in installments usually paid at various times after the beneficiaries prove to be utilizing the funds in businesses as they claimed before getting the loan.
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