About 3,000 Small Scale Business Enterprises(SMEs) owners in Kwara State have been selected to benefit from the first batch of operational cost grants under the Kwara COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (CARES) Programme.

The programme, a World Bank initiative to be underwritten by the state government, is designed to cushion the effects of COVID-19, improve the state of MSMEs to boost the local economy, and increase the employment rate in Kwara State.

The Operational Team Lead of the Kwara COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (CARES) Programme, Mr. Jaiye Jegede, stated this in Ilorin in a statement yesterday.

He said: “4,225 successful applicants underwent the vetting process for disbursement linked indicator, DLI 3.2.

At the end of the vetting process, over 3,000 successful applicants are currently being contacted for enumeration by agents from the Bank of Industry”.

Jegede announced that over 20,000 applicants from across all 16 local governments had applied through a hybrid of online and offline registration processes at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Technology and the Kwara state Social Investment Programmes office.

“Following the registration, which was open to all small business owners in Kwara state, over 4,000 successful applicants for the operational cost grants (also known as disbursement linked indicator 3.2) were contacted by the Bank of Industry (BoI), who are the implementing partners to fill a vetting form requesting for further information on their businesses,” he added.

The statement explained that the programme would kick off disbursement with the operational cost grants also known as DLI 3.2, followed by the Credit grant and IT enhancement grant.

“The programme is focused on improving the employment rate and ease of running businesses in the state,” it added.