Re: How government, MDAs scammed us by SME owners

By Dikko Umaru Radda

Our attention has been drawn to a publication titled “N288b COVID-19 Relief Fund: How government, MDAs scammed us, by SME Owners” which was published in pages 9 & 10 of the Sunday June 20, 2021 edition of The Nation Newspaper and it has become very necessary to clarify the misinformation that seems to surround the objectives, implementation and outcomes/impacts of the intervention.

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic came at a time that the whole world was least prepared for it. Consequently, different countries came up with various approaches to mitigate its negative impact on health and the economy generally.

The need to curtail the spread of the virus informed the decision of the Federal Government to declare total lockdown leading to a cessation of all movement in March 30th, 2020. With an economy still recuperating from the global recession, the toll of the lockdown on the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sub-sector necessitated a tailored intervention. The situation gave birth to the MSME Survival Fund and Guaranteed Offtake Scheme, a subset of the Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan (NESP) which was essentially initiated to cushion the debilitating effects of the economic lockdown on MSMEs.

The MSMEs Survival Fund and Guaranteed Offtake Scheme is a conditional grant to support vulnerable micro and small enterprises in meeting their payroll obligations and safeguard jobs in the MSMEs sector. The Scheme has five components:

1. Payroll Support Scheme: This is to support 500,000 vulnerable MSMEs in meeting their payroll obligations of either N30,000 or N50,000 per employee for 3 months.
2. Artisan and Transport Scheme: This was targeted at providing 333,000 artisans and transport business operators with a N30,000 operational grant to reduce the effects of the loss of income as a result of the lockdown.
3. CAC Formalization Support Scheme: This is to help with the free registration of 250,000 new businesses with the Corporate Affairs Corporation (CAC).
4. General MSME Grants Scheme: This provided a grant of N50,000 to each of the carefully identified 100,000 enterprises that were most affected by the COVID19 pandemic.
5. Guaranteed Off-take Scheme: This scheme was essentially aimed at protecting and sustaining the incomes of vulnerable MSMEs by guaranteeing the Off-take of their products.

A carefully selected team of tested technocrats and administrators from both the public and private sectors were inaugurated into the MSME Survival Fund Steering Committee. The Steering Committee is chaired by the Honourable Minister of State of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment while the Vice-Chairman is from the Organised Private Sector. For ease of operations and for the purpose of accountability, key sub-Committees such as Governance and Administration, Monitoring and Evaluation, Media and Logistics, Finance and procurement were constituted.

To guarantee equity and national spread, the MSME Survival Fund embarked on massive and sustained publicity to create national awareness about the intervention with step by step guide in the application process. For emphasis, none of the schemes require direct interaction with beneficiaries as most of the tracks were processed online and funds paid directly into beneficiaries’ accounts. Under the Payroll Support scheme, business owners are required to register their businesses through the portal and enlist their employees who are verified before payments were made. The Artisan and Transport Scheme enumerated beneficiaries through their Trade associations and Unions who provided names and other details of their members. Before each disbursement, the list of beneficiaries was strictly subjected to rigorous review by the Steering Committee.

It is pertinent to note that to date, the Scheme has recorded the following outcomes:

1. There are 459,338 beneficiaries in the Payroll Support;
2. There are 293,326 beneficiaries under the Artisans/Transport scheme.
3. The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has concluded the free registration of 229,532 enterprises under the scheme;
4. A total of 82,459 MSMEs have benefitted under the MSME Grant.