By Ikhili Ebalu, Benin City
The Standard Life Organization, (SLO), on Saturday, launched its Standard Life Asset Loan Product and Digital Field Application Technology to boost small and medium scale enterprises in Edo State.
Delivering his speech at the launch of the project at the headquarters of the institution in Benin City, the Executive Director, Mr. Osazee Oyegue said one of the ways to get the people out of poverty is to empower them with the requisite tools and ideas to be viable and be self-sufficient, thus necessitating the launch of the programme.
“Permit me to quote an old Italian adage which says, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
“Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time.
“‘For us in Standard Life Organization, we believe that one of the most effective ways to create wealth, reduce poverty and inequality in our society is to empower the economically disadvantaged individuals with the necessary tools, materials, equipment, machine and other income generating assets which they can use to create wealth for themselves”, Oyegue said.
He also said that with the project, the organization is poised and determined to helping over 1,000,000 economically disadvantaged people in the next two years to create wealth themselves by empowering them with requisite tools and Income Generating Assets (IGA) thereby digitalizing their operations to provide hitch free transactions, reduce any operational burdens on the clients arising from full manual system. While the Digital Field Application which is currently facing app will in no distant time metamorphous into the client facing app.
He noted that at the end of the launching over 250 assets will be distributed to the organization’s clients across 66 branches within 12 states which have started in Benin the main head office.
He called on the people of the state to constantly utilize the equipment as income generating tools and not to be converted to liabilities, stressing that his definition of asset is any tools or equipment that brings money to your pocket, while liability is the one that takes money away from your pocket.