As a response to the negative effects felt by businesses occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, the incumbent administration introduced the Survival Fund that has, according to President Muhammadu Buhari, helped businesses in the country to “stay afloat”.
Buhari noted this on Tuesday at the flagship programme of the Nigeria Jubilee Fellows Programme at the State House, Abuja.
He said that the development of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan had stimulated growth in the country’s economy, leading to its 5.01 percent growth as disclosed by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The president said, “Tuesday, June 22, 2021, I set up the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS) steering committee to coordinate our work to fulfil my promise to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in ten years.
“This is building on the positive results from the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan and the targeted response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic with the Economic Sustainability Plan.
“These efforts have yielded results with Nigeria recording its biggest economic growth in six years with a GDP growth of 5 per cent in the second quarter of 2021.
“The sectors that drove this growth are trade, telecommunications, transportation, electricity, agriculture and manufacturing.
“Each of these sectors showed significant improvement and thus created more jobs for our populace.
“An important part of our policies and strategies is the focus on employment and creating opportunities for our people.
“When this government was elected in 2015, we committed to increasing job opportunities for Nigerians and as part of our social investments programme we recruited 500,000 graduates into our N-power programme.
“We estimate that about 2 million people join our labour force annually.
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“We continue to work with our partners to provide more opportunities to create jobs and the Nigeria Jubilee Fellows Programme in partnership with the United Nation’s Development Programme being one of such opportunities.
“The jubilee programme will provide a pathway for young Nigerians to gain work experience in top tier organisations, gaining relevant skills and building the right networks for the future in various sectors including information and communications technology, financial services, trade, manufacturing, agriculture and agro-processing.
“Other sectors include mining, telecommunications, creative industries and technology, education, health, research and development, and public sector institutions.
“We believe that building the right skills and experiences across these sectors are important to sustain the economic growth we are experiencing.”
He added that over half a million Nigerian have benefited from the various initiatives introduced by the Federal Government to help business owners in the country.
Buhari said, “We have set-up a survival fund which has helped many businesses stay afloat in the worst economic periods of the last five years.
“More than one million Nigerians have benefitted from the fund, with more than 500,000 benefitting from the MSMEs Payroll support track, approximately 270,000 beneficiaries of the artisan support track, and about 50,000 beneficiaries of the MSME grant scheme.”
