No fewer than 60% Nigerian women are expected to benefit from the N220 billion loan scheme put in place by the Central Bank of Nigeria to strengthen the Micro- Small and Medium Scale Enterprises(MSME) in the country.
A CBN official, Mr Babatunde Ogunlaja, made the revelation in Ado Ekiti yesterday while interacting with prospective beneficiaries of the scheme comprising farmers, business men and women artisans and unemployed youths.
Ogunlaja said such high percentage was set aside for women because available data indicated that women don’t default on loan, adding interest rate for the loan has been pegged at 9 % for easy repayment.
The CBN official said a sum of N63 billion had since been disbursed since March, 2016 out of which N5 billion was given to 80,000 farmers in Kebbi State to shore up rice production in the Zcountry, so that Nigeria can stop relying on importation of food.
According to him, “over one trillion naira has been expended by CBN for various intervention programmes in the areas of MSME, infrastructure, and agriculture, but it pains us that most of our
agriculture products have not reached the processing unit let alone storage.
“Having found that out people don’t want to pay back loans, the loans shall be disbursed through registered cooperative societies and commercial banks, who have been given the mandate to pay into individual accounts within five days”, he said .
Ogunlaja stated further that the CBN has also earmarked a sum of N4.4 billion for physically challenged to make them economically relevant and reduce destitution in the system.
Under the youth Entrepreneurship scheme, he said a special programme has been designed for graduate under the NYSC Scheme to boost agro-business, manufacturing and craft.
Assistant Director, Consumer Protection Department of the CBN, Mrs Bolaji Lartey, said the bank would effectively play its regulatory role on commercial and micro-finance bank for speedy disbursement of the loan to beneficiaries.