NYIF: Youths risk losing govt empowerment funds over failure to reply confirmation messages

Nigerian youths selected for loans under the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) are at risk of losing the credit opportunity according to the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.

Recall that 25,000 candidates had been selected for the N75 billion intervention programme which was meant for youths with business plans. NYIF provides between N250,000 to N3 million.

The intervention programme was meant to cater to the youths between 2020 and 2023, with about 6,000 youths from the pool already benefitting from the first set of disbursements in 2020.

However, only 14 percent of the new set of batch meant to draw from the N75 billion have replied emails from the NYIF to confirm their readiness to receive the funds, and the Ministry has disbursed the funds to them.

This is according to a statement by the Ministry’s press & public relations director, Mohammed Manga, on Tuesday. It was gathered that the ministry received low response from the successful applicants as regards confirmation for disbursements.

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It was gathered that those who fail to respond to the NYIF email would lose the opportunity to access the loan, “Less than 14% of the newly shortlisted applicants from the over 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.

“Instructions on how to access the funds are contained in the email sent. The rate of response to the emails has been quite low. However, others who responded have received the funds into their PFI designated bank accounts.

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

“The Nigerian Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) is being disbursed to the youth who have expressed business needs within a range of N250,000 to N3m depending on the scale of the business and its evaluation.

“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 NYIF guidelines and processes remain the same”, the statement reads.

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