The Federal Government reassured Nigerian that TraderMoni, one of the government’s empowerment programmes, continues to serve millions of Nigerians, noting that it had not gone “down the drain”.
This was disclosed by the Special Adviser to the President on National Social Investment Programmes (NSIPs), Nasir Mahmoud, at a two-day session, themed, ‘Sensitisation Workshop on Effective Media Reporting of Humanitarian Sector’.
Mahmoud said that the programme remains one of the ways through which the government extends support to “petty traders and market women”.
He added that the government needed to ramp up efforts in data collection of traders to know how best to serve them and sustain the scheme.
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He said, “For TraderMoni, it has not gone down the drain. I mentioned during my paper presentation that it is still one of the special intervention programmes through which we empower petty traders and market women.
“What happened was that what was done when it was under the last President was pilot. One because it was when the election was approaching, and then a lot of things were opened up, but the only good thing we are left to do is to begin to plan how best to handle this kind of programme.
“We have to do some totalling after data collection, to know exactly who are the Traders; where they are, and what type of intervention do they need? And then we are also looking at sustainability.
“It won’t make any difference to give somebody N10,000 as a one-off and then go away. We must find a way to do it, so that it will become sustainable, just like the GEEP.
“The GEEP is meant to give empowerment to small businesses, especially those that were affected by COVID-19. But we have to do it in such a way that when you take a loan and develop your business, a time comes when you pay that loan for other people because you can never go down at the same time.”
