President of Institute for Fiscal Studies, Mr Godwin Ighedosa, has said that the institute is putting together five billion naira to be disbursed as loans to help young entrepreneurs start businesses.
He made the statement in Abuja on Thursday when members of the Institute visited the National Productivity Centre.
Ighedosa said that the fund, which would be sourced from other partners, would help these entrepreneurs access money to engage in businesses.
The partners are Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture and some other foundations and NGOs that were largely focused on entrepreneurship and enterprise development.
He said that the loan was aimed at empowering students and retirees.
“We have put together an initial capital of about five billion naira and we are engaging various firms that will be working as business incubators.
“The young students and retirees after retirement instead of waiting for pension have a lot of ideas that they can put to use in terms of business development and economic planning,’’ he said.
He noted that collateral and interest rates were the major obstacles to establishing businesses in Nigeria.
“So what we intend to do is to provide them access to some kind of seed money that they can use to start these businesses.
“As for the collateral, we are working with some government agencies to find a way to strengthen property rights law in the country where you can get to a position where the idea itself can serve as collateral for the money.’’
He said that the interest rate would be single digit.
He added that this will provide people access to the money to further assist them through the formative years of the business until they could pay the money back.
Ighedosa said that the aim of the visit to the centre was to seek partnership with it to add value to the programme.
Responding, the Director-General of the Centre, Mr Kashim Akor, said that the centre was fully ready to cooperate with the institute by providing an enabling environment for the success of the project.
Represented by the Director, Planning and Policy Analysis, Mr Samuel Oyibo, said that the centre would provide human capital and
other resources.
He, however, noted that the centre would consider the benefits of the project to Nigerians before it could be granted
