The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has warned Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) against charging double-digit interest on intervention funds guaranteed by the apex bank.
Emefiele gave the warning in Abeokuta, Ogun State, during an interaction between the Presidential Task Force on Agricultural Commodities & Production and young farmers at the Owowo Model Farm Estate.
The CBN boss, who assured the young farmers of the his bankís funding support through their respective PFIs, asked them to report any bank that charges them above 9 per cent interest rate on loans guaranteed by CBN.
He also assured them that Development Finance officers from the apex bank were readily available to assist them on how to access credit from the various intervention funds in order to guarantee employment, create wealth and meet the country’s food needs.
He, therefore, urged the young farmers to take advantage of the bank’s Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YEDP) as well as the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF) to create wealth,
Also speaking, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, assured the youth of the Federal Government’s support in their quest to make legitimate earnings from agriculture.
Ogbeh, who frowned at the spate of importation of goods that could be easily produced in the country, expressed confidence in the ability of the youth to produce agricultural commodities that would earn the country the much-needed foreign exchange.
He also commended the effort of the CBN governor, who, he noted, was very concerned about the import bills of the country, particularly as it had to do with rice importation.
In his remarks, the Kebbi State Governor and Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Agricultural Commodities and Production, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar Bagudu, commended the support of the CBN in revamping agricultural value chains across different crop types. He equally lauded the efforts of the Ogun State government in boosting agriculture in the State.
The host-Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, in his remarks, thanked the presidential task force for visiting the state; assuring that his administration would partner with the CBN and do all within available resources to fund the agricultural sector.
In a related development,
According to the minister, who disclosed this in an interview with foreign media in Abuja, apart from taking deposits, the bank will also start lending for farming projects at an interest rate of less than 10 per cent or less than half of commercial market rates.
ìWe are looking at 25 million farmersî as stakeholders or depositors. We are probably going to take a major step by the end of this year.And by February or March, we will have a structure in place for the changes we want to carry out.î
The bank, created in 1972 to provide credit and technical support to farming projects, lent at least N41 billion to 600 businesses across Nigeria over 10 years, according to information on its website.
ìItís good to invest in the bank, but they should ensure they have proper management to improve its performance and efficiency,” Musa Tarimbuka, the division head for agriculture at Fidelity Bank Plc, said by phone. “They have disbursed a lot of money over the past 40 years, and the non-performing loans are very high.”
The central bank kept its benchmark rate unchanged at 14 percent on Nov. 24 as it seeks to support an economy forecast by the International Monetary Fund to contract 1.7 percent this year. Itís also trying to curb inflation, which quickened to an 11-year high of 18.3 percent in October. Food prices rose 17.1 percent from a year earlier, partly due to the high price of imported food after the naira lost almost 40 percent of its value against the dollar following the abandonment of a currency peg in June.
The government plans to distribute 110 rice mills across the country over the next two months at a subsidy of 40 percent, Ogbeh said. These measures will help boost production and reduce food imports, which were worth about 1.2 trillion naira last year, according to statistics bureau data, he said.