Noah Ebije, Kaduna
The Federal Government has concluded arrangements to inject N10 billion as part of measures to revive ailing Bank of Agriculture (BOA).
The bank will also under go several restructuring to meet up with modern technological advancement in banking sector.
This was disclosed by the management of Lead Capital Consortuim, the consortium tasked to provide financial advisory and policy that will support the Federal Government, regarding the recapitalisation of the bank.
The consortuim is to also ensure that good control and governance is instituted in BoA.
According to the Managing Director, Lead Capital Consortium, Dr Wale Adewunmi , who visited BOA management with his team yesterday, “Upon completion of the restructuring of the bank over the next 14 weeks, the Federal Government will recapitalise it with over N10 billion and subseqently, the process will continue through public funding.
Adewunmi further explained, “ The first funding will come form Federal Government, then the subsquent one will be from the public.
“The objective is that , the consortium has been tasked to provide financial advise and policy options as well that will support the Federal Government of Nigeria, regarding the recapitalisation of the Bank of Agric and also ensuring that good corporate governance is instituted into it.
“The bank is at the verge of receiving fresh capital, so it needs to really deal with issue of cooperate governance , so that there will be proper management of resources going forward.
“The second objective is also to have the BOA to catch up on the gaps it currently have in its operations. For instance, is still not having a license perse as a bank. This will be sorted out at this point so that its now properly licensed at this point by the CBN.
“Thirdly, it is planned that the capital to be injected into BOA will come from even the public. The first round will come from the government and then subsequently it will be open to the general public and interested stakeholders.
“Having said that, we are very passionate on the mandate we are given to ensure that the project is completed within 14weeks that we are told to do this exercise.”
However, the Managing Director of Bank of Agriculture ( BOA), Kabir Mohammed Adamu, said the bank has recovered over N7billion as part of outstanding debts owed itby borrower .