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The Presidential Amnesty Programme Cooperative Society Limited (PAPCOSOL) is set to empower about 1,000 ex-agitators across the Niger Delta in the first batch of its single digit interest loan scheme.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of PAPCOSOL, Justice Francis Tabai (rtd), disclosed this in a statement on Monday.
He said that over 2,000 ex-agitators have, so far, registered in the ongoing process at various state offices of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), out of which 500 have been confirmed and cleared to receive the loan within the next two weeks.
The retired jurist and foremost traditional ruler in Niger Delta said the team managing the process has done a holistic job of ensuring that the loans go to those who truly deserve them.
Justice Tabai explained that the first set of beneficiaries was selected after a rigorous process, which includes, physical verification of their business premises, adding that they met the required standard.
He said: “We have received over 1,000 applications since we started a few weeks ago.” The process is still ongoing at various state offices of the PAP. However, as of now, we have painstakingly gone through the applications, beginning with verification from PAP to ensure that those who applied are real delegates (ex-agitators) of the programme.
“We have also done field assessment by visiting business premises of prospective beneficiaries.
“Having done all of these, we will issue an offer letter to those who were successful in this first batch, and once they accept the offer letter, the loan sum that they applied for will be released to them within two weeks.”
Justice Tabai also pointed out that to ensure sustainability, they have approached development partners to help in financing the scheme, as the PAP alone cannot fund it.
He added that when such collaboration is formed, more ex-agitators would have access to the loans.
He dismissed insinuations of mismanagement of the loan by critics, insisting that people of proven integrity manage the scheme.
Tobai said: “PAPCOSOL is a novel sustainable development initiative of the Interim Administrator of the PAP, Major General Barry Ndiomu (rtd), which is aimed at helping ex-agitators seek alternative and sustainable sources of livelihood.
“Part of what we have tried to do is also to use the scheme to create some kind of data to ascertain the skill set of ex-agitators to know those who can rightly fit into entrepreneurship and so on. This will help us facilitate linkages. But in the long run, we want to see how we can begin to invest in areas where we have competitive and comparative advantage.
“We urge our people to join this effort to change the narrative of our region rather than the falsehood being peddled in the media by some people who are desperate to frustrate the entire process.”
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