The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari, Dr. Andrew Kwasari said a direct investment of $1.2 billion has been secured under the Green Imperative Project for Nigerian Farmers.
“In summary, Green Imperative is a borrowing that will inject foreign direct investment of 995 million euro that is $1.2b that has been structured financially to allow the government of Nigeria use a bi-lateral negotiation and arrive at a financing that is below 3% per annum interest rate and a gestation period of about 15 years to be paid.”
Dr. Kwasari while addressing the press in Abuja on Wednesday noted that the investment has been structured financially to allow the government of Nigeria use a bi-lateral negotiation and arrive at a financing that is below 3% per annum interest rate and a gestation period of about 15 years to be paid.
According to Dr. Kwasari, the Green imperative Project which is an Agriculture bi-lateral project between Nigeria and the government of Brazil will address issues of providing mechanization and provide agro-processing.
He added that the two will work together through service centers which will be created in each local government across Nigeria to compliment primary production through mechanization and value addition to agro-processing.
Furthermore, Dr Kwasari said the green imperative is in line of doing business seamlessly and as such, government of Nigeria has no single power to import a single tractor as tractors will be brought in by the service centers operators.
“The first thing however is to make the selection criteria between Nigeria and Brazil to be transparent and be focus on entrepreneurs that can run the service centers as a business to smallholder farmers.”.
“The service fee will be far cheaper than currently being paid, assemblage of the tractors will be done here in each of the geopolitical zones.”.He added.
Meanwhile, Dr Kwasari while speaking on Agriculture For Food and Jobs said has a loan of 600 Billion naira to cushion the effect of COVID-19 on Agriculture
“This is the response from the federal government to cushion the impact of COVID-19 on agriculture. It is a loan, a total package of about 600 Billion naira over one year.”.
He added that in doing this, there is need to work with Central Bank of Nigeria and stipulated which seeks to create easy access to the loan and also to assist in reducing the interest.
“To achieve this, we need a second leg, a private company that will be responsible for coordinating the farmers and make sure that the loan gets to them, we also need a clear database that will allow us register them among various commodities that we have prioritize.”.