We’ve met CBN, others over Anchor Borrowers’ illegal deductions — Ogun Commissioner

The Ogun State Government has engaged with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Wema Bank, the financial institution managing the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme in the state, to address complaints of illegal deductions from the accounts of farmers under the federal government initiative.

This was revealed by the State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Bolu Owotomo, during a media parley held on Monday at the Ministry’s conference room in Abeokuta. The session was also attended by the Permanent Secretary, Kehinde Jokotoye, and other directors from the ministry.

Owotomo said over 4,000 farmers had subscribed to the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme in the state, aimed at boosting food production and ensuring food security. He explained that following complaints of unauthorised deductions, the state government convened a meeting with the CBN and Wema Bank to investigate the situation and learn from the challenges encountered.

“Over 4000 farmers that are meant to be beneficiaries of the Anchor Borrowers Programme experienced some challenges during the project. Those challenges we are trying to narrow it down,” Owotomo stated.

He continued, “To do that, we have called a meeting with the Central Bank of Nigeria and Wema Bank, which is the financial institution responsible. They were in about two weeks ago, when we had a robust and lengthy meeting in terms of what we believed could have gone wrong, so that we can have a lesson learnt as a state.”

It was agreed at the meeting that the stakeholders would revisit the Project Implementation Manual to clarify the appropriate course of action when farmers record losses. In the meantime, the financial institution has been directed to suspend further deductions from farmers’ accounts pending the outcome of the review.

Owotomo assured that any funds wrongly deducted would be refunded once the verification process is complete, and appealed to affected farmers for patience. “As a responsible state government, we have been doing everything possible to resolve these issues,” he said.

ALSO READ: 

The Commissioner also disclosed that farmers in the state had received support under the World Bank-assisted Ogun State Economic Transformation Project (OGSTEP), with inputs valued at over N5.4 billion distributed.

In further efforts to boost agricultural output, he announced that 39 new tractors would soon be inaugurated to promote mechanised farming. Additionally, the government is exploring partnerships with the private sector to refurbish heavy-duty equipment, including 20 bulldozers currently out of use at the Agriculture Services Office in Asero, Abeokuta. He said five of the bulldozers would soon be restored to service to ease land clearing and support large-scale farming.

ALSO READ TOP STORIES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE