From Chijioke Agwu, Abakaliki

The Chairman of Maize Growers And Processors Association of Nigeria (MAGPAMAN) in Ebonyi State, Chief Ebere Orji, said the country is yet to achieve food sufficiency despite huge investment in the sector due to certain factors, including insincerity and policy summersault by government.  He said farmers face challenges, particularly those who benefited from the CBN’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) in 2020.

Orji said: “I think that the problem is not that our soil is not good or that we don’t have equipments as some people may argue. The major problem is, to be frank with you, lack of sincerity on the part of the goverment. For instance, in 2020 MAGPAMAN was listed to benefit from CBN agric loan. About 1,595 farmers were earmarked to benefit from the CBN Anchor Borrowers’ Programme. But at the end of the day, an input for 815 farmers were brought.

“And by then we were asking the national office of a commercial bank that opened accounts for everybody from their headquarters and distributed the accounts to their branches what happened about the shortage of inputs. We were meant to regularize our accounts and out of close to 1,600 in Ebonyi State, 815 persons were able to regularize their accounts.

“There is what we call EOP (Economic of Production).  That Economic of Production is the amount of money that is earmarked for one hectare of land for each farmer and that amount is N182,461: 61 (one hundred and eighty two thousand, four hundred and sixty one naira sixty one kobo),  if I am not mistaken, but it is  surely within that range.

“We were told that that  amount attracts an interest of five per cent. And at the end of the day after the production, harvest and sales, that each farmer is expected to pay  around N191,000 (one hundred and ninety one thousand and some fractions of naira.

“Out of that 1595 farmers, only 815 farmers were able to regularize their accounts. Actually, what happened was that when they brought the names from the national headquarters, they were so many names that we never knew how the names came. Even when the mapping was done, some of them said they came from Ishielu. Personally, I participated in the mapping, I called some of the numbers and I found out that some of those people came from Imo and Abia states.

“We said we will not accept the names because if it gets to the time of  repayment, it will be difficult for us to go for the drive since we don’t know these people. So we never did all those ones. At the end of the day, we were able to do 850 and they brought a input for 815 but during the time of crediting account they credited all the accounts.

“The idea of the CBN Anchor Borrowers’ Programme is that with the EOP, a hectare will cost 182,461,61. The CBN in partnership with the bank is not expected to give you that money cash but they will transfer that money to an account of a farmer and with the EOP,  it was agreed that a bag of fertilizer maybe N8,500 or N7,500  as at the time.  And that was  the deductions that were made at that time.

“They were making this deduction from the accounts since the bank credited all the accounts of over 1500 farmers instead of 850 farmers that  we were working with. The time of repayment what happened?They said that the deductions that they were making that time from those accounts that there are now pulling back the money since the owners did not regularize their accounts and we relaxed our mind.

“Lo and behold, we followed all the due process with the NAIC. You know in that economic of production, insurance is also there, which was 3.5%. That amount was deducted as insurance to cover in case of any eventualities. 

“There are money for mechanisation and it was deducted and that money was deducted  to the account of the person who did that mechanisation. For the supply of the maize, the money was deducted to the whosoever company that made the supply. Wedon’t even know who supplied.

Related News

“The NAIC was properly notified from the start of the production to where the whole thing failed. They followed up CBN  and followed up  the commercial bank. And at the end of the day when they started this recovery, they never took  cognizance  of all those things  that were signed.

“As I said the loan amount was N182,461 and  some fractions of kobo. In recovering now, which the bank  started, they started taking any amount seen in any account.  Lets assume that everything went well, both the principal and interest wouldn’t have been more than N191,000. It is not up to N200,000. So, why are they erasing  any amount they see in people’s accounts?”

Have you approached  ECO Bank to find out why they are making the arbitrary deductions?

Asked if they had approached the bank to find out why they are making arbitrary deductions, Orji said: “The funniest thing is that even the branch manager of the bank in Ebonyi State cannot answer any question on this. We  approached him and went with a woman whose money was deducted to the tune of over N680,000. We asked the branch manager to show us how much ordinarily they should have deducted, he had no answer.”

Orji further explained: “The account that  they  are deducting this money from is what the federal   government  calls GSI. They say general standing instruction order is  whereby if you are  indebted to the federal government, they have the right to go into your account like the person that they deducted over N680,000 from her account  in another.   

Okay the money paid by CBN for the production of the maize how were you people able to access it or are they the one spending the money on you peoples behalf?

He said the CBN spends the money it paid for the production of maize. The CBN structured that  programme. That N182,471 and some fractions of kobo is meant to go this way: four bags of NPK at 7500, the bank will deduct the money to whoever supplied whatever to the farmers. They will give an instruction to the bank to withdraw N30,000 to the contractor who supplied that. And that  was were NAIC came in, their own fraction is 3.5 percent of the money and the idea is that you have to insure your farm incase of any natural disaster or unforeseen circumstances.They are supposed to come and pay but at the end of the day when everything failed,  they did not pay as expected of them.  And we don’t know the reason till today. They should not have come for recovery in Ebonyi State because all we did was a total failure because of weather.”

Orji further disclosed when the programme started. “It was supposed to start from farming season, at least from April 2020. But the inputs for 815 were brought between August and September 2020. And in that EOP, there is an amount for mechanization, and someone who is to go into maize farming should not have gone by August.

He said: “Not only that, the money meant for mechanization came in September. They were some money meant for harvest and because we planted and did not harvest because of bad weather, and the money was not used. Yet, that money was deducted.

“We planted July 2020, and from the second week of July to October,there was no rain and everything we planted died. Even rice that year suffered because there was no rain.

“Our appeal is that the bank should reverse the money they deducted from our farmers; the bank CBN and NAIC work together and they all knew what happened that year. They should also check their records very well because they deducted from farmers who did not even access the money.

Again, they should explain to us why they are deducting higher than what they ought to.”