By Matthew Okoata
The State Government through the Directorate of Humanitarian and Community Support Services, has given the go-ahead for the distribution of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) to the beneficiaries of Government Enterprises Empowerment Programme (GEEP) in the State .
The Commissioner for Humanitarian and Community Support Services, Dr. Darlington Ijeh gave the approval yesterday to Access Bank PLC during their courtesy visit to his office by representatives of the Bank, to commence the issuance of the ATM to the targeted beneficiaries of the programme in the State.
Dr. Ijeh mandated the Bank to carry out the distribution exercise in the field as against inviting the beneficiaries to visit the Bank for the issuance.
The State Focal Person National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP), Mr. Henry Agwaziam, said that the Government Enterprises Empowerment Programme (GEEP) started in 2016 with three components namely: Trader Money which captures youths who are into small scale enterprises; Market Money which is targeted towards the market women. The beneficiaries of these two categories, opened bank account with Access Bank PLC as a channel to receive this financial loan assistance from the Federal government through a cashless process.
Mr. Agwazim added that the third component, Farmer Money is done through inputs such as fertilizers, farm implements among others.
He posited that the first batch tagged GEEP-2.0 captured 3,016 beneficiaries while the second batch captured 2,989 respondents/ beneficiaries in the State.
The Team Lead, Access Bank, Ms said that the Team came to congratulate the Commissioner on his appointment into the State Executive Council and seek for other ways to partner with the Directorate.
