The Edo Government has set aside N500 million for disbursement as loan to genuine entrepreneurs to spur industrial development in the state.  The Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Dr Cordelia Aiwize, made the announcement in a statement in Benin on Tuesday. “It is a counterpart funding scheme in which the Edo Government has so far contributed N250 million as its funding to create a fund of N500 million meant for disbursement as loans to cooperative societies and small-scale industries,” she said. She said the matching grant of N250 million would be provided under the Bank of Industry’s Micro-Credit Scheme.

The commissioner appealed to prospective applicants who had business proposals or existing businesses and cooperative societies in place to take advantage of the scheme. “Edo has not had a good history in terms of management of micro-credit facilities granted to beneficiaries in the past years,” she said.

Aiwize put the credit facility recovery rate at 20 per cent and appealed to those owing to repay, pointing out that ’’this is a moral issue which we should try to uphold at all times’’.    

She said the state had recorded low performance in some sectors, but stressed that the present administration was committed to the development of all the sectors.