By KHADIJAT KUBURAT LAWAL,

The President Buhari led administration on Monday opened the portal for its Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises(MSMEs) Survival Fund.

MSME Survival Fund is an initiative by the Nigerian Government to support businesses that have been knocked to their kneels as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The initiative is set to spend N2.3 trillion to manage the economic fallout of COVID-19 which will help prevent the country from going into a deep recession.

At least 1.7 million Nigerian business owners are expected to benefit from the iniative which is part of the government’s Economic Sustainability Plan.

Below is a step by step guideline on how to apply for the survival fund.

1. To apply for the fund, log on to

https://www.survivalfund.ng or http://www.survivalfundapplication.com.

2. When you’ve logged on to the site, before signing up, click on the arrow which reads “Start Here”, this will lead you to the categories of support available for application.

MSME support fund Categories

The first category on the website is the MSME Payroll Support which is for business owners who have not been able to pay their staff salary for the past three months.

MSME Survival Fund/Twitter

The aforementioned salary support is supposed to be between N30,000 and N50,000.

The second category is the MSME Grant; this type of grant is meant to support the manufacturing sector with money to increase production capacity.

The third category is the Guaranteed Offtake; this category of grant is meant to support medium, micro and small business enterprises.

3. Click on any of the categories your business falls into.

Steps and Requirements

Applicants are expected to follow four steps to complete their registration.

1. Personal Registration

Applicants are expected to provide their personal details, first and last name, email, phone number, password, gender, date of birth, residential address, state of origin and local government, accept the Terms and Conditions, then register.

2. Account activation

Upon completion of step 1 above, applicants will receive an activation code on the phone number/email address used for registration.

Ensure you used a valid email/phone number as the code will be used to activate your account.

3. Organisation registration

Upon successful activation of account, applicants will be required to login and register their Organization.

Applicants are expected to have their CAC Number, SMEDAN Number, Tax ID (Optional) and the organizations bank account details.

4. Complete the payroll support application

Under the MSME Payroll Support, applicants will receive an email on the list of requirements to complete the application.

The requirements include: names of not more than 10 staff, proof of previous payment to the aforementioned staff and other supporting documents.

Upon completion of step 4 above, applicants are expected to submit their application.

Timetable for registration

Below is the timetable released by the federal government for the three categories on the scheme.

Business owners in the educational sector are expected to start their registration from Monday 21st September, 2020.

MSME Survival Fund/Twitter

Business owners in the hospitality sector e.g. cinemas, bars, hotels, restaurants etc are expected to register by 12:00am on Friday, 25th September, 2020.

Every business owner is expected to register from Monday, 28th September 2020.

The registration for all sectors will close on Thursday, 15th October, 2020. (Daily Trust)

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