The targets of the micro-credit facility are the low income earners in the NLNG host communities particularly those who cannot raise money to start business. One salutary effect of the scheme has been the inculcation and sustenance of savings and banking habits in the people.  Only a registered co-operative society with at least 10 members engaged in productive ventures in the community is qualified to apply for the loan. The money, so obtained, is a revolving fund payable after 12-15 months to enable other groups benefit. Some of the attributes of the scheme include an interest of only five percent on the principal sum. On take-off, 94 co-operative societies were found genuine and shared over N37 million. Today, they have varying success stories to tell. The 94 groups were made up of about 3,500 direct beneficiaries of the loan scheme. No fewer than 100,000 people have benefited indirectly, through employment or other opportunities created by the activities of the co-operative societies

From oil Palm processing, garri and timber processing to livestock, fishing, tailoring, and baking, the NLNG micro-credit facility has continued to impact on lives of its host communities positively.

In parts of Omoku kingdom for instance, cassava plantations either started or sustained with micro-credit, offers hope that the poor shall have food on their table.The area now described as the food basket of Rivers state bears testimony to the impact of the micro-credit facility. A visit to Ebiyebe in Ogba kingdom and the large expanse of cassava plantation owned and managed by the Udo Ya Ka Mma Co-operative will put a smile on your face.

In Bonny, the high cost of bread and other essential food items may soon be history, if the progress being made by some co-operative societies, which secured the loan, is sustained. From vegetable farming to petty trading, business activities have really taken off on the Island where virtually every food item was hitherto ferried in from neighbouring urban towns at very exorbitant costs. In the past, the Bonny Bakers Co-operative owned a small bakery but this all changed with a micro-credit loan which dramatically increased its yield and dividend.

The Bisa Finima Co-operative in Finima has been into poultry farming for years but the business was not quite successful until they secured the micro-credit facility. Prior to securing the loan, the co-operative could only purchase 200 birds. With the NLNG loan however, 500 more were bought as well as battery cages for rearing chicken.

Skills acquisition and development
The credit facility has also been extended to accommodate skills acquisition and development. Skills in welding, hairdressing, dress-making, using computers to set up business centres form the second phase of the credit facility-otherwise labelled the skills acquisition programme. In this phase, NLNG will be dealing with people who will also be employers of labour transferring the skills they have acquired from the scheme set up for them.

Given the emphasis on skill development and acquisition, more people may smile as the scheme goes into its second phase the next two years.

By 2005, it is expected that no fewer than a million people will have been touched by the scheme.