Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo has disclosed that the federal government would institutionalize its social investment programmes through the establishment of Peoples’ Money Bank and Entrepreneurship bank.

According to Osinbajo, the establishment of the banks was in having a full banking framework devoted to giving such credit to those persons involved in petty businesses.

Osinbajo, accompanied by Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, made this disclosure on Thursday after interacting with beneficiaries of the federal government’s “Tradermoni” scheme, at Oje and Bodija markets in Ibadan, Oyo State capital.

Though the “tradermoni” scheme, which is a part of the Government Enterprise and Empowerment programme, Osinbajo stated that more than one million petty traders and artisans, across the country, had received interest-free loans starting from N10,000.

Other social investment programmes of the federal government include N-Power, National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme and National Cash Transfer Project.

“The Social Investment programmes are wholly government funded and are the major part of the APC’s agenda as a government.

“It is so much about a government policy and that is the way it is going to be. We have proposed also, as we go along, to establish the Peoples’ Money Bank. This is a whole bank that is devoted to credit for the bottom of the pyramid. We are also going to do an entrepreneurship bank but we think we must devote a full banking framework to this kind of credit. We are working on it and we will get there.

“Tradermoni is a programme that we are running across the country. In the first phase, two million petty traders will benefit. As of now, we are definitely at over a million petty traders already.

“The whole idea is to ensure that the government is able to give the bottom of the pyramid, traders, credit. These are traders who usually nobody wants to give them credit because they are not sure whether they will pay back or won’t, but they are the vast majority of the Nigerian people, commercial persons, Osinbajo said.

•Excerpted from a Tribune report

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