Omodele Adigun
The import substitution agenda of the Federal Government got a big boost yesterday as the nation’s banks , under the aegis of Bankers’ Committee, have pledged N200billion credit support for the export of five commodities just as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has vowed to deal with smugglers sabotaging the economy.
Addressing the media at the end of their meeting Thursday in Lagos, Mr Kennedy Uzoka, the Managing Director of United Bank for Africa (UBA), alongside the Director of Banking Supervision Department of the CBN, Ahmed, Abdullahi; the Managing Directors of Access Bank Plc, GT Bank and Ecobank Herbert Wigwe; Segun Agbaje and Patrick Akinwuntan respectively, as well as the spokesman of the apex bank, Isaac Okorafor, said that the support, which was a lending facility at a single digit rate up to a maximum of 10 years, would help transform the economy from being a mono-product through different exports.
Going down memory lane, Uzoka said the committee in 2018 had set-up a sub committee to look into those challenges confronting the nation in diversifying its economy from the stand-point of export.
“We found out that, indeed, we have a lot of policies.But the challenge has been execution. Finance is one of the major challenges.Again we saw logistics as a challenge, policies as a challenge.We are talking of exports, this should be round the clock.Our ports do not work over the weekends.This mean we can not even export.And in terms of policies that drive export, we believe that a lot of them need to be changed.And we know about the congestion at the ports.So we looked at all these things and we broke them into immediate, mid term and long term because some we can not addressed within a very short period”, he said. He explained that CBN has different funds supporting export businesses, saying “We look at the existing funding structure to know which can address the current challenges. Also, we look at the viability of the product in terms of helping export, addressing employment issues and creating the necessary economic activities to boost foreign exchange, ” he added.
On the commodities the banks were focusing on, the UBA boss said they included palm oil, cocoa, sesame seeds, Soghum and Cashew.
Okorafor, on his part, was miffed by an online report, which quoted certain study, that 70 per cent of rice currently on the Nigerian market are imported.”I express serious doubt over that study. I am sure they must have put their parameters upside down. What may be confusing to people is that the quality of packaging that you see, some of them are are actually better than the smuggled rice.So you need to read the label to see that this is Nigerian made rice”, he said.
He announced the apex bank’s resolve to work with relevant agencies to deal with smugglers. “The Bankers’ Committee also took that decision today to work with relevant agencies to deal with those who are sabotaging our economy through funding or giving access to smugglers and we are already working with EFCC on that.”