The Minister of State, Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs Mariam Yelwaji  Katagum has announced that the MSME Survival Funds General Grants would take off from November 27, 2020.

The General Grant Scheme is a component of the Federal Government N75Billion MSME Survival Funds Programme to cushion the effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria whereby 100,000 registered businesses would recieve a one-time grant of  N50,000 each to support their businesses.

The application portal has however been recently moved to https://www.survivalfund.gov.ng but the minister stated that “this group of beneficiaries(the General Grant) is encouraged to take advantage of registration through MSME associations, registered business clusters, trade associations, and unions.”

Speaking on the Payroll Supports, the minister gave a breakdown analysis stating that,  N30,000 was paid to each of the 94,696 verified employees of selected MSMEs, amounting to N2.84bn while N50,000 was paid to each of 6,871 employers, amounting to N343.55bn, all in total of 101.567 beneficiaries and N3.18 billion disbursed.

Mrs Katagum furthered that 2.6% of the beneficiaries were people with special needs while 43 percent of the total beneficiaries were women.

“The disbursement for Payroll Support is ongoing across the country. However, due to the inability of some states to meet their target application numbers, the portal will be reopened to accommodate such states,” she said.