Wale Raji offers free interest loans to women

The Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) has signed a partnership agreement with Hon. Wale Raji Women Empowerment Scheme, a brain child of a federal lawmaker representing Epe Constituency in the House of Representatives, to promote small and medium enterprises by providing free interest loans.

As part of the partnership arrangement, the law maker will provide N10 million to provide support for  100,000 MSMEs, create at least 300,000 direct & 600,000 indirect jobs by 2019.

The Lagos State Empowerment Trust Fund (LSETF) will act as the administrator of the scheme.

Women operating within Epe Constituency can get loans from LSETF to invest in their businesses at interest free rates. With this agreement, the five percent interest rate originally meant to be paid per annum on loans serviced to the LSETF will be paid by Wale Raji to ease the burden on applicants of the loans.

“Today we are signing an agreement between the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) and Hon. Wale Raji’s Foundation. Under that agreement, we will offer loans of up to N500, 000 to constituents in Epe with Hon. Wale Raji paying the interest on behalf of the beneficiaries. As a result of this arrangement, the loans will be available to the beneficiaries at no interest rate,” said Akintunde Oyebode,  executive secretary, LSETF, while speaking on the project in Lagos.

“This is a great model for proper representation and we will also ask well meaningful Nigerians in Lagos State who want to run similar programmes in their communities to please contact us at the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF),” Oyebode said.

In his remarks, Wale Raji disclosed that the partnership is necessary to improve MSMEs in Epe and Lagos State in general. “I am happy today that a thought that came to me as an individual, which I shared with my close aides, has come into fruition,” he said.

Raji said plans are underway to enter into another arrangement with the LSETF to ensure the male folks also benefit in accessing loans to invest in their businesses.

At the completion of the event, the first set of beneficiaries of the loans under this arrangement were handed application forms. The application forms will subsequently be put through the LSETF vetting process with the IBILE Microfinance Bank saddled with the responsibility of managing the funds provided by the Hon. Wale Raji foundation and the LSETF.

ANGEL JAMES