Kaduna partners banks on poverty alleviation

In order to alleviate the high level of poverty in Kaduna state, the government has entered into a partnership with two commercial banks to generate N7 billion to be issued as loans to over 800,000 indigent citizens of the state to develop private businesses that would enhance the employment in the state, Governor Namadi Sambo has announced. Speaking during an interactive session with the peer review team of the governors’ forum on Tuesday April 13, 2010, Governor Sambo stated that the state entered into the partnership with First Bank and Access Bank as part of its scheme to ensure that small-scale businessmen, traders and youths have access to funds to build business ventures.

He stated that prior to entering the partnership; the state government started a full-scale statewide survey, which witnessed the generation of biometric data from all the wards of the state in a manner that was satisfactory to the financial institutions.

According to him: “Through the conduct of the statewide survey, we were able to generate biometric data for 800,000 persons in all the wards of the state. These persons now have accurate addresses and data that can be relied upon by the financial institutions in the distribution of credit facilities for the alleviation of the poverty prevalent in the state. He noted that in addition to the working partnership with the two banks, the state government has disbursed N150 million credit facilities to traders in seven markets, with the aim of ensuring that they continue to be in business and remain self-sustaining.

He said: “We have discovered that poverty has played a major role in the entrenchment of health problems and general insecurity. We have tackled poverty headlong and we have seen the dividends in the form of better health for our people and increased security across the state”.

Sambo said that he views education as a means of eradicating poverty; hence he has taken several steps to improve different levels of education, so that the people can easily sustain themselves.

He particularly said that the state government is investing in the ‘almajiri’ primary boarding school scheme, where ‘almajiris’, (children beggars) are quartered in schools to be taught Western and Islamic education with the aim of empowering them to leave the streets in the nearest future.

The governor stated that government is working towards reviving industries that were incapacitated due to inadequate power in order to generate thousands of employment and return the state to the era where it was one of the most industrialized areas of the nation.

He said that the state government is investing in power projects and water schemes in order to get her industries, especially the textile companies running because they have the capacity to generate thousands of employment to the unemployed.

In his remarks, Mr. Asishana Okauru, leader of the peer review team commended the state government for working towards alleviating poverty in the state. He said such programmes would help the people improve their living condition because government is investing in people centred programmes.