Governor Babagana Umara Zulum on Saturday in Gamboru, supervised the disbursement of N343m and varieties of food to aid part of economic, and humanitarian intervention to residents of the border community in Ngala local government area of Borno State.
Gamboru shared border with Cameroon through which Chad and Central Africa are reached by road.
The N343 combined the sum of N150m distributed as soft loan and grants to small and medium scale traders, and N193m disbursed to 48,700 vulnerable residents.
N150m to traders
Governor Babagana Umara Zulum arrived Gamboru on Friday, after passing two nights in Dikwa, and on Saturday, he flagged off the disbursement of N150m to traders.
Zulum personally took time to verify the list of beneficiaries, explaining that his action was to ensure only deserving persons were allotted the loans, in the aim to stimulate the local economy.
19 traders received N1m, 25 traders received N500,000 each, other categories received between N250,000, N100,000 and N30,000 each, depending on sizes of their businesses, the jobs they create and capacity to off-set loans.
The Governor explained that, the loan/grant with refundable period of four years, was meant to resuscitate businesses and livelihoods destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgents in communities of Gwoza.
As he explained in Biu and Gwoza where similar disbursements were made weeks back, Zulum emphasized in Gamboru, that any beneficiary that is able to repay 50% his or her loans within record time will enjoy waiver of the balance of 50%, while those who deliberately fail to repay within the dateline will be made to repay 100% of what they received as loans and grants.
N193m, food to vulnerable residents
Aside disbursing N150m to traders, Governor Zulum, still in Gamboru, disbursed N193m vulnerable residents from different communities of Ngala local government.
Combined total of 48,700 residents received cash and variety of food items during the Governor’s humanitarian trip.
30,000 female residents received N5,000 cash and a wrapper each, another 4,372 male residents received N10,000 cash each, while 14,328 male residents, each received a bag of rice, a bag of Maize grain and a bag of beans.
