Ahead of the flag-off of the second phase of Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP 2.0), the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs has held a 1-Day training for Community Orientation and Mobilization Officers alongside Desk Officers for the 21 local government areas of Kogi State.
The training which was held at the conference hall of NOA office in Lokoja on Saturday 14th August, 2021 also had in attendance the Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Saddiya Umar Farouk who was represented by the Training Coordinator Ms. Otini Aduku, the Kogi State Focal Person of National Social Investment Program (NSIP) Honourable Abdulkareem Onyekehi Suleiman with other Kogi GEEP officials.
In her opening remark, the Kogi State Director, National Orientation Agency, Muhammed Othman Abdullahi commended the federal and the Kogi State Government for the impact the social investment programmes have made on the lives of the common citizens. He urged the COMOs to utilize the training in extending the benefits of the GEEP to more deserving people across the communities.
Otini Aduku who reprerseted the minister commended the trainees for their prompt attendance which she described as the first indication of their commitment to deliver. Ms. Aduku noted that since the commencement of the social investment programmes, over 4 million Nigerians have been directly impacted through various components of the scheme aimed at lifting millions of Nigerians out of poverty. She, however, charged the trainees to be deligent in their enumeration process and consider the task a service to the nation.
In his address, the state focal person of the NSIP, Hon. Onyekehi Suleiman stressed the need for the trainees to adhere strictly to the programme guidelines as they embark on the registration exercise.
Hon. Onyekehi siad “The federal government has invested over N17 billion in Kogi citizens through the various components of the SIP and this is made possible by the maximum supports and partnership offered by our amiable Gover, His Excellency Alhaji Yahaya Bello to complement the President Muhammadu Buhari’s social intervention programs.
“The governor has not only provided the most befitting edifice for the State’s office of NSIP, he has been providing adequate funding to cater for salary and other logisitics that have propelled Kogi State to the rank of the best performing state in SIP implementation across the country”.
While recalling the success of the programmes in Kogi state, the focal person said that prior to his resumption, the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) had about 11,000 beneficiaries across the state. He said the figure has since increased to 34,000 over the past 3 years now while the recent data deployed by the National Social Register has made it possible to reach over 72,000 beneficiaries (poor and vulnerable women) in the next payment of CCT in Kogi State.
He also revealed that the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme with its current data of 177,640 school pupils will record more beneficiaries with the efforts of the ongoing recruitment of cooks and mop-up exercise to capture all the 258,000 pupils across the 21 LGAs of Kogi state.
On the N-Power programme, Onyekehi explained that while over 12,000 Kogi citizens benefited from the Batch A and B, the state now targets between 20,000 to 30,000 beneficiaries in the first and second streams of Batch C.
He finally appealled to both the COMOs and the Desk officers to imbibe the spirit of team work with the commona goal of ensuring the success of the GEEP 2.0 in Kogi state.
Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program (GEEP) was established to provide financial support and training to businesses and entrepreneurs at the bottom of the financial pyramid. By providing low-cost micro-lending to over a million women, enterprising youths, agricultural workers, and other vulnerable economic producers, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program supports the development of otherwise low-productivity sectors of the population, bringing millions of people into the modern economy and lifting communities out of poverty.
The second phase of the proram is billed to take-off nation-wide on 21st August, 2021.
Ismail M. Kabir
SA Media