The Federal Government, last week, inaugurated the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) Steering Committee on the restructuring and recapitalisation of the Bank of Industry (BoI) and the Project Delivery Team to revitalise the operations of the Bank of Agriculture (BoA).
Inaugurating the Steering Committee and Project Delivery Team on behalf of the Vice President, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who chairs the committee, informed that the approach was to make the BoA more responsive to its mandate of serving as a veritable platform for providing loans to MSMEs, rural farmers, cooperatives and agro-allied industries, among others.
The Minister said the approach was being preferred by the Federal Government as a pre-privatisation strategy to pave way for injection of financial and other requisite resources. He added: “It is therefore the conviction of my ministry that the approved restructuring and recapitalisation are critical to the revitalisation of the bank’s operations, as it will enable the bank serve as a strong catalyst for achieving government’s objectives.”
The Minister also noted that the Federal Government has charged the Steering Committee, under his chairmanship, with the mandate to midwife the laudable initiative to be implemented within a record time.
The Steering Committee will be technically supported by the Project Delivery Team, which is made up of experienced personnel drawn from key stakeholder agencies of government. Members of the Steering Committee are Ministers of Finance, National Planning, and Industry, Trade and Investment, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE).
Others are Chief Economic Adviser to the President, Special Adviser to the Vice President on Economics, General Manager, Finance and Accounts, BoA, representative of the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Sector Director, BPE, who is the committee’s Secretary.
Members of the Project Delivery Team, chaired by the Sector Director (DFIs), Bureau of Enterprise, are representatives of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Federal Ministry of Finance, Office of the Vice President, CBN and BoA. Also included are Project Manager (DFIs), BPE and the Enterprises Officer, BoA who is the team’s Secretary.