The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) has supported 16 Cooperative Societies with N4.6 million in Borno State. Each of the beneficiaries is given N288, 750 to reactivate and improve their small scale agricultural enterprises in communities. While presenting the N4.6m cheques at the weekend in Maiduguri, the Director General of SMEDAN, who was represented by Fatima Shuaibu disclosed that members of the cooperative societies have undergone six-day training and counselling. According to her, the counselling of SMEDAN was on how to judiciously utilize the disbursed grants to improve livelihoods in communities. She said that the Agri-business Development and Empowerment Programme (ADEP) is created to improve rural industrialization at the grassroots.
“These token grants are to provide you with post-harvest support services with the linking of agri-business, including market finance,” she said. She noted that similar SMEDAN training has been conducted in Kebbi, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Ondo states. Fatima therefore urged the participants to make good use of the grants; so as to become role models in their respective communities. The Manager of the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), Usman Balarabe and the Head, Cooperative Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Malam Abba said that the grants will help reinvigorate small businesses affected in the 12-year Boko Haram insurgency that destroyed people’s means of livelihoods.
