By Jethro Ibileke/Benin
The Edo state government says it will spend over N3 billion to implement Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus Programme.
The programme is a component of Nigeria Cares World Bank Support Programme.
The Permanent Secretary in the state Ministry of Wealth Creation, Cooperatives and Employment, Joel Edionwe, disclosed this while briefing journalists on Wednesday.
He explained that the state government is to provide grants to support businesses affected during the Covid-19 lock-down.
According to him, the total package the World Bank support programme for Nigeria is $750 million, adding that its implementation would run from 2021 to 2022.
“What they will get from Edo state government is a grant to repay the loans they took for their businesses affected by the pandemic. We do not need to lament Covid-19 effect, we must address them,” he said.
He further disclosed that his Ministry has trained over150 agents to capture the data of businesses in Edo state, explaining that the programme is running in partnership with the Bank of Industry, that would carry out due diligence before shortlisting qualified businesses and disbursement of funds.
According to Edionwe, the Disbursement Linked Initiative for Result of the programme (DLI), has three categories, explaining that the first category covers grant to support post Covid-19 loan to ease financial constraint, while category two grant support operational cost of enterprises-input and working cost (employment and job creation grant and category three grant is to enhance technical capabilities, especially development oof digital/ICT capacities.