The Federal Government has said it will extend its no-interest loan scheme, TraderMoni, to Ekiti State on Monday. The Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on Mobilisation to Gov. Kayode Fayemi, Mr Tunji Ogunlola, disclosed this to newsmen in Ado-Ekiti on Friday while speaking on the Vice President’s visit to the state.
He lauded the initiative of the Federal Government on the scheme and assured that real traders would be captured.
Ogunlola said the state government was emphasising on working directly with the market leaders since the loan that must be repaid.
“If the loan is given anyhow to people without proper identification, the repayment may not be guaranteed. The Federal Government’s idea is good. So, we are appealing to the traders to work with us because though we know them, but they know themselves better and are closer to one another than to the government,” he added.
Vanguard reports that the TraderMoni scheme is part of the socio-investment programme of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. It added that the plan is to ensure that petty traders receive the first loan of N10,000. Once they are able to repay that over a period of six months, they get another N15,000 loan and when they repay that, they get another N20,000 loan until they get as much as N50,000.
Ogunlola said the President wanted to ensure that traders at the bottom of the ladder – those whose wares and businesses were just about N3000, N5000 and so on are not left out. He said those qualified for the loan were those who normally would not get any kind of financial assistance from banks because they did not have collateral.
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