Photograph — nigeriatoday.ng

On Tuesday, September 20, 2016, Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State announced several ways the state government plans to tackle the impact of the country’s recession on the residents of Anambra.

From tax relief programmes and packages for entrepreneurs to social intervention programmes for low-income households and the most vulnerable population of the state, here are 11 ways the state hopes to alleviate the impact of the recession on its people.

  1. Introduce waivers on some existing taxes, fees and levies in the state, and scrap the collection of illegal levies imposed on people.
  2. Suspend wheelbarrow tax in all markets in the state.
  3. Abolish the imposition of unapproved levies on students in public primary and secondary schools in the state.
  4. Give automatic employment to physically challenged graduates from universities in Anambra State into the State Civil Service.
  5. Suspend the collection of Hawkers Permit and the sale of consolidated emblems in the state.
  6. Provide the Anambra Small Business Agency with a minimum of N3 billion to lend to SMEs and MSMEs at 9% interest rate across key sectors.
  7. Re-channel an earlier accessed Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture and Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme funds totalling to about N1.5 billion to support SMEs and MSMEs.
  8. Provide N3.6 billion to fund ongoing N20 million community projects in all the 179 communities in the state. According to Governor Obaino, every community has already been allocated N20 million to spend on their most pressing concern. “The projects will also be executed by the community and strictly supervised by the State’s Tenders Board and the community members in line with best practice,” he said.
  9. Fund the development of 500 hectares of land in all agrarian communities across the three senatorial zones in the state to support out-grower schemes and link them up to big industries in the state. “For example, next year, Delfarm Songhai Ltd will commence the supply of sorghum that is produced in Igbariam to Intafact Breweries Ltd in Onitsha,” the governor said.
  10. Fund three Youth Empowerment Schemes in fish farming, garri and rice processing clusters in the state with the sum of N225m.
  11. N300m has been earmarked to be distributed to stimulate the production of vegetable in the state and enhance its Vegetable-Export Programme to the UK and other parts of the world.

Since the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) confirmed widespread suspicion that Nigeria’s economy had slid into a recession late last month, Anambra is the first state to come up with specific programmes aimed at providing relief to its residents. Hopefully, Governor Willie Obaino will actually match words with action and have other states and even the federal government follow suit.

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