The Federal Government has disbursed loans to 23,400 beneficiaries in 13 states and the Federal Capital Territory under its enterprise and empowerment programme.

Spokesman to the vice president, Mr Laolu Akande, who disclosed this in a statement yesterday, did not disclose the exact amount disbursed.

The loans ranged from N10,000 to N100,000 per applicant and would be paid directly to individuals who were expected to belong to registered associations or co-operatives “to ensure that they are peer-endorsed as credible”.

The vice president’s aide listed benefiting states as Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Ekiti, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Lagos, Osun, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and Rivers.

He noted that over one million people had enrolled for the micro-credit scheme across the nation and were expected to benefit this year.

According to him, the “no-interest” micro-credit scheme, with “only a one-time five percent administrative fee is targeted at traders, artisans, market men and women, entrepreneurs and farmers.”

Akande also said that “the actual feeding of pupils is expected to commence this week in Ogun and Oyo States; while Ebonyi State will soon follow suit.”

He denied reports of food rationing in states where the home-grown school feeding programme had kicked off saying “While the federal government has paid all approved cooks based on the number of pupils allocated to each cook, it’s the states that provide the number of pupils to be fed. And where those figures change, the next batch of FG payment would reflect it. Specifically, where the number of pupils increases, the states will communicate the increase and approve the review.

“The numbers of the new pupils are then physically verified before a commensurate number of cooks are engaged, trained and then paid. The FG has also adopted a system where it pays the cooks a 10-day advance payment for feeding. The programme is designed to ensure that no cook feeds more than 150 pupils a day, but in some cases, the numbers are as low as 35 children per cook.”

Daily Trust