Abuja, Feb. 17, 2016 (NAN) The Adamawa Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Ahmad Sajoh, says the state government has introduced a micro-credit scheme to accommodate the needs of the informal sector.
Sajoh said this while fielding questions on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Wednesday in Abuja.
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“We have an empowerment programme, we call it `Bindo for Social Change’ and it involves a micro-credit scheme, and that micro scheme is supposed to identify people who are productive within the informal sector.
“We want to re-organize the informal sector because for a very long time, we have neglected the informal sector in this country; we were dealing with just the formal sector.
“But the man who buys just one `damy’ of sugarcane, prepares and pushes it in the wheel barrow is doing something productive; people have neglected him.
“The woman who prepares `dawadawa’ or those `kulikuli’, the blacksmith, the carver who caves the pestle and the mortar; these are people who have been neglected; they are contributing to the economy.
“We say, lets prepare and give them small loan that will change their lives and see if they can develop a productive mechanics that have a value chain.’’
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He explained that the government, through the scheme, would create a value chain for the informal sector, so that the economy could be driven from that level.
Sajoh said that those who would benefit from the scheme would fill a form which would be signed by the ward head.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
He said that this would authenticate the true identity of the beneficiaries and the business the individual is into, so that money would not be collected by the wrong people and thereby short change the government.
“If you fill the form, it must be signed by the `mai angwa’ who will authenticate that you live in that area and that you do that business you claim you are doing.
“He takes the form to the village head the village head, who will authenticate mai angwa signature by signing on that form; he takes it to the district head, district head authenticates the signature by signing on that form.
“This is the only way we can guarantee you and we are insisting that we will not give money cash but to give you through a community bank.’’
The commissioner said that the government, through the scheme, would to encourage the informal people to begin to enjoy some measure of formality.
“We are looking for three million productive people in Adamawa who we can trace, whose identity we can recognise, so that people will begin to be citizens rather than statistics; that is our intention.’’ (NAN)
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