The Group Managing Director of Access Bank Plc, Mr. Roosevelt Ogbonna, has said the bank “is investing N30 billion in the micro, small and medium enterprises.”
Ogbonna disclosed this Friday in an interview with State House correspondents after he led the management of the bank on a visit to Vice President Kashim Shettima.
He said the funds to be disbursed in the form of soft loans, would be targeted at women and youth entrepreneurs.
“Working with the office of the Vice President we want to change the lives of small businesses belonging to women and youths. We do agree and determine that about 66 per cent of MSMEs in Nigeria are owned by women and the youth.
“And I think one of the challenges that they face is finance therefore, working with the office of the Vice President; we have agreed today that Access bank will provide about N30 billion towards supporting women and MSME’s and the youth.
“We will expect that this money will be done at discounted rate to commercial terms and we want to see how we can truly have a positive impact to this segment of the Nigerian economy so, we are excited to be part of that process and we thank the Vice President and his office for giving us this opportunity to be a partner,” he said.
He said the scheme would impact at least four million people and the entire process would be kick started immediately as directed by Vice President Shettima.
“We are starting from today. We just have to look for the deserving MSMEs. We have been supporting SMEs and women for the last 16-17 years and all we are doing with this partnership is to give us significant impetus to do more.
“The Vice President has charged us to do less talking so we are now going to be on the streets to try and ensure that we get this off the ground immediately.”
Also speaking, the senior special assistant to the president on medium and small scale enterprises, Mr. Temitola Adekunle-Johnson, said the country’s business environment was condusive for businesses to thrive.
He said the scheme would help strengthen partnerships between the public and private sectors.
