The Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) has dispensed over N43.92 billion to ‘active farmers’ on the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP).
The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele who disclosed this on Wendesday during the bank’s ‘Special Day’ at the ongoing Abuja International Trade Fair in Abuja also said that the apex bank facilitated the refund of over N50 billion excess bank charges.
Emefiele said that the excess bank charges has been refunded to bank depositors whose complaints were brought to the attention of CBN’s Consumer protection department.
The CBN governor, represented by the Acting Director, Corporate Communications, ISAAC Okorafor, described the bank’s Anchor Borrowers Program intervention as a huge success.
The governor said the N43.92 billion was released to active farmers through 13 participating banking institutions. He said that over 200,000 small holder farmers from 29 states of the federation benefited from the scheme while 233,000 hectares of farm land were cultivated with eight commodities which include, rice, wheat, maize , cotton , soya – beans, poultry; cassava and ground nuts in addition to fish farming.
While reflecting on effect of forex procurement ban slammed on certain commodities, the governor said the decision has produced positive outcome ” It’s pertinent to mention here that, so far , there has been a quantum leap in local production of most of the commodities contained in the list of 41 items not eligible for official forex allocation or access in the country.
The success achieved through the policy had resulted in many Nigerians consuming what we produce and producing what we consume.
Reports from the real sector operators also indicate that some companies had grown in geometric progression as a result of the policy.
The bank has also continued to fund the foreign exchange window in a bid to stabilize the naira, which I’m sure , you are all witness to the neat convergence in the foreign exchange market,” he said.
He listed other major areas of interventions by the bank, which included , Agriculture Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund ( ACGSF), the N200 billion Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme, N200 billion SMEs restructuring & refinancing facility; N300 billion power and airline intervention fund, N220 billion MSMEDF and Nigeria Incentive- based risk sharing system for agriculture lending ( NIRSAL) amongst others.
Earlier in his remark, first Vice- President of Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry Alhaji Al- Mujtaba Abubakar commended the CBN under the leadership of Godwin Emefile for its laudable interventions including decisive role played by the bank in getting economy off recession hook.
He, however urged CBN to consider lowering the lending rate to banks as a means of spurring production value chain in the real sector.
