THE Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has inaugurated the N750 million Lagos Market Transfer Money programme for 15,000 market men and women in the 20 Local Governments Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas of the State.
Sanwo-Olu disclosed this development on Sunday, December 17, 2023, at the inauguration of the Fresh Food Agro-Hub in Idi-Oro Market in the Mushin Local Government Area.
It is worth noting that the Fresh Food Agro-Hub was established to mitigate post-harvest losses inflation, traffic congestion, and reduce carbon footprint emissions, among others.
The Governor said that the first 15,000 beneficiaries of the programme would receive N50,000 each as palliatives to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal.
According to him, each Local Government Area will send 200 beneficiaries each, while an additional 50 will come from market leaders – Iyalojas and Babalojas across the State.
In his words, “We are launching here today (yesterday), what we call the Lagos Market Trader Money. As a measure of where we are, the first 15,000 market beneficiaries are going to be getting support of N50,000 from the Government.
“How it is going to work is that we are not going to pick these beneficiaries from the big markets; each Local Government will submit 200 names that will be divided among 10 markets.
“This means from 10 markets, we will identify 20 beneficiaries each. We are going to give the Iyalojas and the Babalojas an additional 50 slots for them to further identify beneficiaries.
“This is going to bring to a total of 250 beneficiaries from every Local Government, and that will give us a total of 14,250.
“The balance of 750, we will identify other stakeholders, the markets that we have in barracks, in our military formation because they also have markets and they are our citizens, and we need to take this type of intervention to them.
“We will distribute the remaining 750 among them, and it will bring us all our beneficiaries.”
Sanwo-olu told the market leaders at the gathering that he had fulfilled the promise made to the traders during their meeting.
He said that when he held a meeting with the market leaders, he promised them 5,700 beneficiaries, but now, he has increased it to 15,000 beneficiaries.
Sanwo-Olu said that the Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms Abisola Olusanya, would handle all the logistics along with all the Local Government Chairmen.
He added that the Government had made arrangements for the funds, and it would commence immediately, adding that it would be paid to beneficiaries before Dec. 31, 2023.
