Lagos, Jan.13, 2023 – The Bank of Industry (BoI) on Friday said it had received over one million applications for the NG-CARES MSME grants across the states.
The NG-CARES is an initiative of the World Bank and the Federal Government to support the recovery of communities, households, and businesses affected by COVID-19.
The bank said this in a statement on Friday that the programme was state-owned and state governments were fully responsible for funding and selection of beneficiaries.
It said that the funding arrangement allowed each state the autonomy to allocate their preferred grant sizes and number of grants across different program components as approved by the World Bank.
It said that BoI was nominated by the World Bank to provide the infrastructure for the delivery of the MSME Component of NG-CARES (RA3) nationwide due to the bank’s track record of building field networks and providing technology infrastructure for the transparent implementation of MSME intervention programmes.
“Following this nomination, 28 out of 33 States chose BOI as their preferred execution partner to leverage the Bank’s MSME infrastructure to deliver NG-CARES.
“Under this partnership, the states are solely responsible for nominating the beneficiaries and selecting those to be disbursed to, following successful verification.
“BOI’s role as execution partner is to manage the end-to-end application and verification processes, and present successful candidates to enable states’ decision making for disbursements.
“BOI disburses as instructed by the states.
“While several beneficiaries may apply or be nominated, beneficiaries do not receive the grant if they do not meet the criteria to qualify, or if their state does not select them for disbursement as the state seeks to manage the funding available for the program and ensure the equitable distribution of benefits across business categories, local government areas, gender or other demographics,” it said.
BoI advised that further enquiries on the eligibility requirements, implementation status, and other programme information can be made through the NG-CARES Federal CARES Support Unit, state delivery agencies, or the official programme website www.ngcares.gov.ng. (GBN)
