- Fifteen billion Naira has been distributed to over 1.5 million petty traders under its TraderMoni loan initiative nationwide
- TraderMoni is a N10,000 collateral-free loan initiative for petty traders under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP)
- The interest-free loans are aimed empowering ordinary Nigerians and helping to tackle poverty
Nigerian traders have benefited immensely from the nationwide Trader moni loan initiative of the federal government as more than N15 billion have been disbursed to over 1.5 million petty traders.
TraderMoni is a N10,000 collateral-free loan initiative for petty traders under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP), one of the Social Investment Programmes (SIPs) of the Buhari administration.
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The vice president while speaking on the initiative when he launched the scheme at Ipata Market in Ilorin, Kwara state capital said the interest-free loans are aimed empowering ordinary Nigerians and helping to tackle poverty, while enabling those at the bottom of the economic ladder who work the hardest do better, Vanguard reports.
“TraderMoni is a very important aspect of our economic policy. We believe that one of the ways to counter poverty and to enable those who work the hardest, and these are the petty traders, to empower them to enable them to be able to do better, we have to give them credit.”
“Nobody else will give microcredit to the petty traders because nobody is sure whether they will be able to pay or not. Only the government can do such. That is why we have decided that we must give micro credit to the petty traders.”
He added that the microcredit scheme was duly approved by the National Assembly.
“First of all, this a programme which was duly approved by the National Assembly. We started this programme (GEEP) since 2016 and it has two other schemes – Market Moni and Trader Moni.
We’ve implemented it across the 36 states of the federation. I think there is never a wrong time to do the right thing. We started this programme almost 18 months ago. We had to wait until NASS approved money before we went on with the programme.”
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the ongoing Trader Moni registration exercise in Kano state has reportedly been infiltrated by suspected fraudsters who are said to have converted the scheme to a source of extorting money from potential beneficiaries of the programme.
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Trader Moni is a federal government initiative designed with a view to enlarging the citizen financial inclusion agenda for Nigerians who are petty traders regardless of their social class or political affiliation.
Osinbajo commissioned the facility which is located at the headquarters of the Abuja Enterprise Agency.
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Source: Legit.ng