100 for 100 PPP: Don recommends business advisory desk for commercial, development banks

DEVELOPMENT Consultant and Lead Consultant, Industry and Private Sector Development, ECOWAS Commission, Professor Ken Ife, has recommended that commercial and development banks should ideally have a business advisory desk in each branch that should be the first port of call of prospective businesses seeking loan from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s 100 for 100 Policy on Production and Productivity (PPP).

According to him, a pool of business advisers would improve the quality of business plans, reduce the rejection rate of applicants and increase the take-up of the loan facilities.

While addressing members of the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN), in a virtual presentation at the second edition of the association’s 2022 monthly capacity building programme, Prof. Ife said the scoring and assessment framework should have “constructive feedback” to enable applicants review and rework their projects and address weaknesses.

Prof. Ife spoke on the theme, ‘Economic recovery and CBN’s RT200 FX Programme: Role of banks and export promoting institutions.’

It will be recalled that in an effort to stimulate the flow of credit to the real sector of the economy and reverse the nation’s over-reliance on import, the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced the 100 for 100 Policy on Production and Productivity (PPP).

The apex bank received 224 applications, valued at N294.91 billion for real sector projects in agriculture, energy, healthcare, manufacturing and services in the first tranche.

IN CASE YOU MISSED THESE FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

• ‘Officials initially offered to help but when the number of able-bodied citizens at the centre increased, they left us unattended to’
• Why Ogun Tops List Of ‘Yahoo Boys’ In Nigeria ― Governor Abiodun
• Police, Amotekun after criminals on Lagos-Ibadan expressway
• Suspected cannibal pays N500,000 for boy’s human organs, says ‘that’s my favourite meal, especially the throat’
• Court awards Nnamdi Kanu N1 billion over invasion of his home by military, asks FG to apologise

Similarly, as some Nigerian farmers get set for the new planting season, Prof. Ife said a total of N948 billion has been disbursed to farmers as loans through the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) of the CBN in-conjunction with the commercial banks, as at the second week of February, 2022.

He explained that during the period under consideration, 4,478,381 farmers benefited from the Anchor borrowers programme loans, with 5.2 million hectares of land, which has created 12.5 million direct and indirect jobs.

Professor Ife, pointed out that more people could have died from starvation and hunger in Nigeria than victims of COVID-19 and insecurity put together if decisive action was not taken to tackle food security through CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme.

He added that the unemployment challenge, which he described as a demographic time-bomb, should leave no one in no doubt of the consequences of under 35 year young people, who make up 65 per cent of Nigeria’s population, with unemployment rate of 48 per cent and underemployment rate of 22 per cent, and only seven per cent of graduates finding employment.

Commenting on Nigeria Gross Domestic Product, (GDP) from the figures released by the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS) on Thursday February 17, 2022, which recorded 3.98 per cent growth for the fourth quarter of 2021, he said, this was possible because of quantitative monetary and fiscal policy responses, including a higher order of targeting of CBN’s domestic finance intervention at the real sector of the economy.