Vice-President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has disclosed that over 300,000 Nigerians have already benefited from the Payroll Support Program for MSMEs and Artisan Grant variants of the Survival Fund.
He made this disclosure in his statement while speaking at the Survival Fund Steering Committee meeting, organized to track and also review the progress being made under the program since the Federal Government commenced payments.
He revealed that this is necessary as the Survival Fund was established to support and protect small businesses from potential vulnerabilities brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Osinbajo revealed that Payments for the Federal Government’s Survival funds are ongoing, and assured that verified applicants of the program who have not been paid would surely be paid in due time.
The survival fund program is expected to put the income of vulnerable artisans, micro and small enterprises and their employees on a path of growth and resilience in a bid to ward off the economic disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Payroll support programme will also help to cushion the loss of jobs and sustain means of livelihoods of individuals and employees, as the programme seeks to cover the inability of MSMEs to pay workers salary, owing to the massive disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.
On December 8th 2020, the Federal Government of Nigeria revealed that it paid 59,000 artisan beneficiaries across 24 states in Nigeria under the Federal Government Survival Fund.