11,000 beneficiaries received N3.5 billion from consumer credit scheme – Minister

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, on Thursday said 11,000 beneficiaries have received N3.5 billion from the consumer credit scheme in the last five days.

Mr Edun disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents shortly after the National Economic Council meeting chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima in Abuja on Thursday.

Outlining the steps taken to ameliorate the economic difficulties and pains faced by Nigerians due to subsidy removal and other ongoing policy reforms, he said President Bola Tinubu’s commitment was always to help the poor and the most vulnerable in particular, and the whole society in general.

“The Consumer Credit Scheme (is) to allow workers to be able to pay for things over time, to be able to afford various goods, including Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) kits to convert their car to a cheaper form of fuel. In the last five days, 11,000 beneficiaries have received N3.5 billion. So that’s an ongoing roll out of consumer credit to help people to make things more affordable to the worker,” Mr Edun said.

He added that the CNG initiative to provide a cheaper source of fuel for fueling mass transit and even personal vehicles is ongoing.

He said the good news is that the resources to cope and to help the society to make investments in critical public social sectors and infrastructure has now increased.

The minister explained that the latest initiative to have local refineries pay for crude and thereby sell petrol in Naira has provided a veritable platform for moving to a stage where the country has market pricing of petroleum products and foreign exchange.

That, he said, has led to immediate gains of around N600 – N700 billion per month, starting from October, which will feed into the Federation Account.

Although the NNPC will effect some charges but effectively, the country is better off now by a huge amount, which will continue to increase as long as the major critical reforms of pricing petroleum properly, pricing foreign exchange properly are maintained, he said.

“I reported that in terms of the direct benefit and direct help to the general public, of course there was wage award at first, now there is the new minimum wage, there is direct transfers to the people on the social register that has been put together by all levels of government and is been verified, so people are paid after they have been uniquely identified biometrically, and they are paid digitally through a bank account or mobile wallet.

“Those payments have been rolled out. They’ve now reached 5 million households, 25 million Nigerians, and first and second payments are being made, and that process of having a robust social register, where you can reach people directly and help them with payments that allow them to now choose what their priority is and go,” he said.

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He added that the deal with that priority is something that will be ongoing, noting that a society always needs to help its poorest and its most vulnerable.

For the micro enterprises, Mr Edun said N50 billion in grants has been about 90 per cent disbursed to micro enterprises who get help with their businesses and working capital.