Update: Ministry urges fund applicants to come for their loan requests

The Federal Ministry of Youths and Sports Development is appealing to Nigerian youths who applied for loans under the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) to come for disbursement.

According to the Ministry, less than 14% of the newly shortlisted applicants from the 25,000 successful candidates, who are expected to be part of the loan, have responded to emails confirming their approval to receive the soft loan.

While noting that instructions on how to access the funds are contained in the email sent, the Ministry expressed worry that the rate of response to the emails has been “quite low.” It added that those that responded have received the funds into their PFI designated bank accounts.

The Ministry in a statement signed by its Director, Press & Public Relations, Mohammed Manga, said: “The Nigerian Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) is being disbursed to the youth who have expressed business needs within a range of N250,000 to N3 million depending on the scale of the business and its evaluation.

“Shortlisted candidates must respond to communication in order to conclude the disbursement process. Those who fail to respond risk forfeiting this opportunity.

“About 6,000 youth benefitted from the first set of disbursements in 2020 and the names of the beneficiaries have since been made public

While in the second batch 4,375 have so far responded to their loan offer messages and received their funds.”

The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development (FMYSD) and the Central Bank of Nigeria launched the NYIF in 2020 which aims to financially empower Nigerian youth to generate at least 500,000 jobs between 2020 and 2023. It was funded with an initial take-off seed capital of N12.5 billion

The major objectives of the fund are to address the fragmentation of youth initiatives that prevent assessment of impact and to provide the Nigerian youth with investment inputs required to build successful businesses that can become sustainable employers of labour and contributors to Nigeria’s development.

Originally published by Nairametrics