The Federal
Government has set up a 21-man steering committee to restructure and recapitalise
the Bank of Agriculture.
The committee
would commence the restructuring with N500bn and work within the next three to
one month to actualise its goal.
Inaugurating
the committee in Abuja on Monday, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, urged the
committee to work within a record time to actualise the goal.
He said the
restructuring was aimed at revitalising the operations of the Bank to make it
more responsive to its mandate.
Osinbajo,
represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu
Ogbeh, said the restructuring, would strengthen the bank as a platform for
providing loans to Small and Medium Enterprise farmers and cooperatives among
others.
He said the
approach was a pre-privatisation strategy preferred by the Federal Government
to pave way for the injection of financial and other requisite resources into
the Bank.
He said, “It
is noteworthy that in its over 20 years of existence, the BoA has faced myriad
of challenges which include, poor funding, poor stakeholder buy in, particularly
Federal Government agencies and erosion of stakeholders funds.”
Ogbeh, also
the Chairman of the committee, said the committee would commence the
restructuring with N500bn and work within the next three to one month to
actualise its goal.
The minister
said the committee was expected to give the Bank a face-lift, look into the
issues of staffing, electronic improvement, work in every community nationwide,
provide credits to SMEs and to farmers small or big.
Ogbeh said the
Central Bank of Nigeria would hand over the Anchor Borrowers Scheme to the Bank
after the restructuring to effectively finance agricultural projects.
He said,
“There will be a better run financed BOA so that the interest rate will be
easily accommodated by farmers. We will recover some of the credits owed by
farmers because some of them have offered to pay.”
The CBN
Governor and a member of the committee, Mr Godwin Emefiele, described its
Anchor Borrowers Programme which started in 2016 as `a success’.
He expressed
optimism that the committee would work to ensure that the BOA achieved its aims
and objectives in a very short time.
According to
him, the loans that are currently given to farmers through the Anchor Borrowers
Scheme is in a single digit
“The Federal
Ministry of Agriculture is asking us to reduce the interest rate to about nine
per cent to enable farmers buy inputs, go to the farm, make a living and feed
the country,’’ Emefiele said.
The Managing
Director of BOA, Prof. Danbala Danju, commended the Federal Government for its
initiative to restructure the Bank.
He expressed
regret over the bad and non- repayment attitude of farmers after collecting
funds from the Bank.
Danju said the
Bank was targeting single digit interest rate on loans to farmers by the end of
the restructuring.
The managing
director said the Bank would work with the private sector and the international
development agencies to actualise their set target
He said, “The
Bank needs to be recapitalised to energise the agriculture sector in line with
best practices all over the world.
“We expect a
restructuring plan that will look at our operating model, human resources and
the entire business plan so that agriculture will be properly financed in
Nigeria.
“Agriculture
has been under-funded and the key challenge is how to source the fund so that
we can assist farmers.
“The key
challenge now is how we can reconstitute ourselves to properly identify farmers
and ensure that when farmers are given loans and support, they pay back.”
The committee
is made up of the Ministers of Finance, Industry, Trade and Investment,
Planning and representatives from the BOA, ministry of Justice, Bureau of
Public Enterprise, among others.
The nine
members known as Project Delivery Team, would also assist the committee to
deliver on the restructuring mandate.
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