The new boss must take the bank out of the doldrums
President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of Mr Ayo Sotinrin as Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) is coming at a critical time that agricultural productivity is low, thus resulting in the high prices of staple food items, including rice, beans, maize, yams, gari, tomatoes, pepper, fish, meat, eggs and poultry, among others, in the country.
The bank, which traces its antecedence to its formation as Nigerian Agriculture Bank (NAB) in 1972, has gone through a number of structural mutations till its rebranding in its current form in 2010. It has been largely moribund over the last decade and a half.
Had the BOA successfully and effectively discharged its mandate, the country’s agricultural sector would not be in the doldrums it is in today. Among its responsibilities are providing credit to support agricultural and non-agricultural value chain activities, promotion of cooperatives to enhance capacity development, developing and maintaining an efficient agricultural information system, as well as assisting farmers with technical and extension services.
The bank is also mandated to provide financial inclusion services and create opportunities for self-employment in rural areas to mitigate the rate of rural-urban migration.
It is estimated that over 80 per cent of farmers in the country are small-scale farmers who cultivate limited land areas, make use of rudimentary implements, and lack access to up-to-date knowledge, technical skills and quality inputs, including seedlings and fertilisers. Yet, they produce the bulk of staple food items, which explains the low productivity relative to demand, despite the availability of vast arable land and favourable climate.
These small-scale farmers cannot afford to obtain credit from commercial banks at the prevailing astronomical interest rates and the BOA, which was established to provide credit to the sector at affordable rates, has, unfortunately, been dormant.
An effective, efficient and optimally performing BOA would also have facilitated the organisation of the teeming small holder farmers into more viable and productive cooperative associations through providing the requisite financing as well as technical support to achieve this objective, with salutary impact on agriculture in Nigeria.
With access to better funding through the bank, stakeholders in the sector would have been able to acquire modern storage facilities and significantly reduce the current high level of post-harvest losses, as food products get spoilt on farms while awaiting transportation to urban markets.
Some of the factors that have impeded the viability of the BOA over the years are high number of non-performing loans that hinders its capacity to provide sustainable financial support to the agricultural sector, inadequate capital, dearth of qualitative human capital, inefficient banking structure and inability to mobilise savings from farmers and rural dwellers.
During the tenure of Mr Godwin Emefiele as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the apex bank virtually took over the functions of the BOA through such initiatives as the Anchor Borrowers Scheme (ABS) that was designed to channel funds to support small holder farmers.
That the ABS had limited impact despite the humongous resources supposed to have been provided to beneficiaries indicates that the CBN lacked the structure, network and expertise to implement the programme. Despite its challenges, the BOA has the highest operational coverage nationwide with regard to development financing for agriculture, has developed a high degree of interface with small holder farmers through its offices and facilities across the country, and has deep institutional knowledge of rural and agricultural financing.
The BOA’s new managing director surely has his job cut out for him. With his rich experience in agriculture financing cutting across the private and public sectors, there are high expectations that he has what it takes to reposition the bank to realise its potential, to the benefit of Nigeria’s agriculture and the economy as a whole.
The Federal Government yesterday said it will divest 60 per cent of its stakes in the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) as part of plans to restructure the lender.
The Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Alex A. Okoh, who spoke at the meeting for the recapitalisation of the bank in Abuja, said the bank has been performing sub-optimally due to the myriad of challenges it faced since inception in 1972.
He said: “The process will lead to the privatisation of equity of the bank.We envisage that the Central Bank equity will be reduced to 20 per cent, Federal Ministry of Finance (incorporated) will be reduced to 20 per cent.The government agencies equity in the new bank will be a minority of 40 per cent. We will then invite private sector investors who will own 20 per cent and the remaining 40 per cent equity will be owned by farmers and farmers’ cooperatives,” he said in a statement endorsed by Head, Public Communications, BPE, Amina Tukur Othman.
Okoh said the new strategy envisages that bank will be transformed into a truly agriculture finance bank modeled along the lines of Agriculture Bank of China and Rabobank of the Netherlands. He said upon its establishment in 1972 to serve as an agricultural and cooperative bank to provide services of a development finance institution, it was vested with the responsibility of providing low cost credit to small holder and commercial farmers.
He, however, lamented that the bank had been unable to realise its responsibilities due to its current structure, stressing that the proposed restructuring and recapitalisation of the bank seek to transform it strictly into an agricultural finance bank with functional branches in all the local government areas and major towns in the country.
The Director-General said the model was sure to encourage farmers to form clusters of cooperatives and thrift societies throughout the six geo-political zones for the purpose of participating in the ownership of the Bank.
Okoh added that the model would fundamentally ensure that the BoA becomes a farmers’ bank owned by farmers.
On the sustainability of the strategy and attracting investment, Okoh said measures would be put in place to take non-performing credit facilities off the balance sheet and books of the bank and possibly sold off to a factor agent. He said the measure was to make the bank attractive to investors and attract cheap funding from multilateral development institutions and other institutional investors with a focus on agricultural financing.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Kabiru Adamu has said that, the bank under the President Muhammadu Buhari initiated Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) has disbursed over N90 billion to farmers in the last for years.
He, however, disclosed that about N180 billion will be spent in the next phase of the programme, which will cover new crops like; palm oil, cotton and sesame seeds among others.
The BOA boss who disclosed these at the ongoing 40th Kaduna International trade fair, said the programme has also created employment and increased yield thereby addressing food security in the country.
He further noted that additional crops that were not there have been introduced including palm oil, cotton, sesame seeds and the like which will be covered under the ABP.
According to him, “Nigerians should expect a boast in the activities that we have undertaken under the ABP in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Immediately after the declaration of Mr. President as duly elected, the CBN called a stakeholders meeting where new targets were set.
“The new targets are ambitious and as a Public Financial Institution, we stand committed and ready to meet the target set by the CBN.
“As you are aware, the ABP is one of the cardinal promises made by Mr. President during their electioneering campaigns, we have supported the programme to enable it to a large extent, by disbursing over N90 billion to farmers.
“We have created employment through the programme and we have increased yield production and by extension food security in the country. With the election of R. President, Nigerians should expect more through the programme. ”
He assured of government’s commitment to make things happen in the agric space and expressed commitment to support the desire of the government
As part of efforts at revitalising agriculture as alternative mainstay of the economy, the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) and SunTrust Bank yesterday in Abuja sealed an e-banking agreement.The agreement was described by the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe as ‘landmark’ and instrumental to the development of the agricultural sector in Nigeria.
The agreement was signed at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in Abuja in presence of operators in the sector.
Managing Director/CEO of SunTrust Bank Nigeria Limited, Muhammad Jibrin and the Chief Executive, BoA, Kabiru Adamu signed for their respective banks during the event. They said the development would aid agric processes as employment generating venture.
The agreement, will among other things, allow SunTrust Bank to deploy its innovative banking services and other complementary e-banking services to simplify BoA services to its farmer customers across its 140 branches in Nigeria.
The SunTrust Bank chief said the deal will also allow it to deploy its banking platforms technology such asautomated tellermachine (ATM) and other infrastructure for the over one million farmers in the kitty of BoA.
Mr. Jibrin said: “We will also provide training support to the BoA staff and at the end of the day, it will be a mutually benefitting agreement to all parties.”
In his remarks, Mr. Adamu expressed optimism that the MoU will revolutionise agriculture in the country.
Nigeria has saved over N216 billion from the importation of rice alone from Thailand and other countries since the nation’s domestic mass production flooded the markets under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP).
Prince Niyi Akenzua, the Executive Director, Risk Management and Finance, Bank of Agriculture (BOA) disclosed on Thursday in Ibadan when he visited Gov. Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State.
The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that Akenzua had led some other officials of the bank on the visit to the state.
He said that the figure represented a fraction of a staggering $22 billion (N7.92trillion) spent on importation of foods into the country annually prior to the advent of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Akenzua said it was worthy of commendation that the country had committed itself to diversifying from oil economy, with emphasis on revitalisation of agriculture.
He said he had embarked on advocacy visit around the country to enlist the support and involvement of state governments in ABP, which freed the country from reliance on importation of rice.
“We enjoin Oyo State to participate in the ABP as we have remodelled the programme to expand the scope of beneficiaries.
“The pilot scheme was so successful that $600m was saved from rice importation due to massive rice production in the country.
“One or two rice millers in Thailand have closed down because Nigeria, which has always been their major importer, has stopped importing their rice.
“We used to spend $22 billion importing food into Nigeria and with our consciousness that every square meter in the country is arable land.
“We felt that it was not sustainable. Of course, the crash in crude oil price has forced us back to agriculture,’’ he said.
Akenzua said that the state could choose a particular crop to produce under the programme, with a promise to co-fund or fund the production of such crop.
Ajimobi in his remarks commended the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh for the positive changes he had brought into the agriculture sector since he assumed duties at the ministry.
The governor stated that the fundamental problem besetting the country was attitudinal, stressing that the country was not bereft of knowledge, policies and programmes capable of enhancing its economy.
Ajimobi said that the state was supposed to be the food basket of the nation if past leaders had seen agriculture as a major solution to unemployment, hunger and economic driver.
According to him, the state is in good stead to be a major agric hub, judging by the concentration of reputable research institutions in the state and its vast arable land.
“The state is also strategically located between Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of the country and the North among other comparative advantages.”
He advised the new management of BOA to do all that is humanly possible to sustain the momentum in its renewed drive to revitalise the agriculture sector.
“You need to change the attitude of our people so they will know that there is money in agriculture.
“We are in this sorry state today because of bureaucracy and lack of sustenance of past agric policies. What has happened to Operation Feed the Nation?
“Don’t just talk the talk, walk the talk. In the past, some people will just give loans to themselves, which they knew they would not recover and this had crippled the bank.”
The governor stated that the state was ready to take advantage of all opportunities available in agriculture to promote the standard of living of its people.
The governor promised to lead by example by also venturing into commercial agriculture, urging the BOA team to advise him on how he could go about obtaining a loan for the purpose.
The Bank of Agriculture (BoA) has lamented that it is being owed N37.4 billion out of its current loan portfolio of N47.2 billion by Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and large scale beneficiaries both in agricultural and non-agricultural sector.
Its Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Kabir Mohammed Adamu stated this when he received on oversight function, the Senate Committee on Agriculture led by its chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.
He said: “Our current loan portfolio is N47,212,810,354.05 to MSMEs and large scale both on agricultural and non-agricultural beneficiaries out of which the sum of N10,760,166,960.90 has been repaid with N37,449,480,101.02 is still in default.”
The BoA chief also identified insufficient funding and the lack of inclusion in the Federal Government’s budget for its recurrent and capital expenditure as major challenge hampering the performance of the bank.
Adamu who said the bank has been a special purpose vehicle towards the development and execution of the Federal Government Agricultural Agenda, also lamented the lack of loan repayment from organisations, groups and farmers.
Other challenges he identified include failure of the shareholders, Federal Ministry of Finance Incorporated and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to pay their equity contributions which he said amount to N18,221,252,456.00.
He also identified other factors inhibiting the organization to include weak capital base, lack of lending resources, information technology, staff related challenges, old and dilapidated structures and inability of tenants to pay their outstanding rents, poor office ambiance and high non-performing loans where other challenges.
In view of the challenges, the BoA chief appealed to the committee to help make a case to President Muhammadu Buhari to provide funding on sustainable basis to allow the bank manage all agricultural interventions and other natural resources funds especially rice levy, wheat levy, sugar levy among others.
“The National Assembly can also assist BoA by making legislations that would allow the bank to manage all Agricultural Interventions Funds such as the National Housing Funds being managed by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and cement subsidy by the Bank of Industry (BoI),” he said.
The bank also urged the committee to prevail on the shareholders, Federal Ministry of Finance Incorporated, CBN to pay up their equity contributions and prevail on the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to release N1,386,000,000.00 being repayment of loans granted to it and it’s parastatals, and for the Federal Government to make budgetary provisions for administrative cost of the bank.
Responding, Senator Adamu assured that the needful will be done to ensure that the bank is assisted in any way possible to enable it perform optimally and efficiently.
He however urged the management of the BoA to formally present the challenges writing, assuring that the committee will make a case to Mr President accordingly.
The recent decision by the federal government to set up a task force on food security appears to be a welcome development in the light of daily astronomical increase in price of food commodities.
One of the major challenges facing farmers in the country, according to stakeholders, is access tp funds and information.
Government, through the Bank of Industry (BoI) and Bank of Agriculture (BoA), has constantly announced provision of loan facilities to farmers, but when it comes to accessing the funds, the criteria are always stringent. This has not only discouraged farmers, who toil day and night, with little or nothing to show for their labour, especially with the issue of wastages leaving tons of produce rotten. It has also discouraged most youths, who studied agriculture to seek money-spinning vocations, as alternatives.
But at a time when young Nigerians, especially graduates, are running from taking on agriculture as a vocation, some have taken exception to this, adding innovation and modern agricultural practices to the system.
The federal government says it will restructure Bank of Agriculture (BoA) so as to facilitate farmers’ access to loans, encourage youths’ participation in farming and boost food production in the country.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said this when he featured at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.
According to Ogbeh, the bank’s restructuring will bring down the interest rate on loans for farmers and young people who want to go into agro-businesses.
Agriculture
“Once we restructure the Bank of Agric, the interest rate will not exceed seven per cent, I am pushing for five. The average rate worldwide is three per cent; it is only in Nigeria we are doing 18 to 25 per cent.”
.On the key deliverables of the steering committee and the project delivery team, Ogbeh said, “They are expected to restructure the bank, give it fresh energy, look into issues of staffing and electronic improvement; because right now, the bank is totally manual.
“So, they are expected to make the bank active and work in every community nationwide to provide credit to MSMEs and to farmers, whether small or big.”
The minister noted that the committee was expected to complete its job and report back to the government in two weeks to one month, adding that the CBN would hand over the responsibility of agriculture funding to the BoA once the restructured bank takes shape.
“There has to be a much stronger, better run and better financed BoA that provides loans at an interest rate that is easy to accommodate by small and big farmers,” Ogbeh said.
Also, Minister of State for Agriculture, Sentor Heineken Lokpobiri, stated the recapitalisation sum for the bank. The minister stated, “The target is high and if we have N1tn, we don’t mind for we are actually looking at a very high figure. We also have to recover some of the credits that are outstanding and some of the farmers who are owing have offered to pay because they are making more money now.” Lokpobiri, said this on at the inaugural harvest of a Tilapia from a fish farm belonging to Premium Aquaculture Limited, Oyan Dam in Abeokuta.
He noted that access to funding remained one of the biggest challenges being faced by farmers in the country.
Lokpobiri lamented that commercial banks were not ready to fund agriculture, hence the decision by the federal government to recapitalise the bank in order to boost the agricultural sector.
The minister said the nation’s fish demand stood at 3.1 metric tonnes per annum, but the current production was around 1.1 metric tonnes per annum, leaving a deficit of 2.1 metric tonnes.
Lagos State chapter of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Otunba Femi Oke, stated that it is every farmer’s dream to see that BoA is lending at a reasonable interest rate.
Oke explained that BoA is key and strategic to farmers’ input toward food productivity in the country.
He said that it is their hope that government will deliver its pledge as promised to the farmers and Nigerian people.
Oke said: “We hope that with the recent policies of the present administration on boosting agriculture, they will deliver their promises to us.
“We are very delighted that CBN is at the front burner towards fine-tuning the repositioning of BoA and that is giving us hope that the bank will be a truly Nigerian farmers’ lender. So, it is our hope that they will do better for agriculture than before.”
On BoA recapitalisation, Oke said: “Yes the BoA can be a leeway in solving agric lending challenges we are facing in the industry right now.
For the National Coordinator LUGAVO and Women Leader, AFAN, Halima Njobdi, it is too early for farmers to rejoice on the ongoing BoA recapitalisation.
Njobdi noted that past governments have promised Nigerian farmers a lot and they were disappointed at the end of the day.
She, however, stated that if FMARD is keen on bringing farmers on board, then real farmers should be considered rather than the portfolio bag carriers.
Meanwhile, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) have reportedly set aside N300 billion for agricultural lending in 2016 apparently in an effort to grow and diversify the economy from oil that has seen its price plummet painfully. The oil price is in its deepest downturn.
The N300 billion for agricultural lending, according to Godwin Emefiele, governor of CBN, at the end of the seventh annual Bankers’ Committee retreat in Lagos, would accommodate not only the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), but also large-scale farming companies in the agricultural sector.
Emefiele explained that the increase in lending to the agriculture sector would translate to reduction in the demand of foreign exchange that would help conserve Nigeria’s foreign reserves and strengthen its currency.
The N300 billion for agricultural lending is a commendable development especially now that the country is seeking creative ways to diversify the economy from oil. According to an analyst, setting aside “N300 billion for agricultural lending is an effort at creative fiscal expansion”. He said “the agricultural sector has been in fine fettle over the last four years as the former agriculture minister and now managing director of African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, took the sector to new and enviable heights of productive output”. However, he said the sector “is still in need of a massive injection of funds to improve not just output but also productivity or output per person.”
The analyst noted that “the N300 billion additional expenditure commitment to the sector would significantly help in growing the sector further provided the additional spending relates to improved access to loans by genuine farmers (as distinct from the traditional fleet-footed ‘farm fund’ pirates) and improvement in farm storage facilities and farm gate road infrastructure.”
Importantly, like those loan before it, implementation will be key. Implementation includes condition for borrowing.
It would be recalled that when CBN floated the N200 billion Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS) loan, many low-scale/peasant and large-scale commercial farmers complained bitterly about their inability to access the funds. Even though the idea behind the scheme was seemingly noble and well-thought-out, most farmers were of the opinion that the criteria set to access the funds seemed unrealistic and the awareness poor. This is the same with other loans either by the CBN or direct from the federal government, stakeholders reckon.
Farmers registered under Goshen Potato Farmers’ Cooperative at the time said there was no way they could have accessed the N200 billion CACS loan if the federal government did not review the conditions for borrowing, noting that the conditions were stringent. Some other farmers lamented over the guidelines, describing them as somewhat unrealistic and elitist. Some analysts said this N300 billion loan for agricultural lending in 2016 will still be dogged with the same fate.
Stakeholders in the industry were of the view that the guidelines of the N200 billion CACS loan consciously marginalised low-scale farmers, who constitute over 80 percent of the country’s farming population. Even if the focus of the fund is to develop commercial agriculture, how many commercial farms in Nigeria could have been really qualified with asset base of N350 million? They queried. The N350 million asset base was part of the condition for accessing the loan.
According to the leadership of the Goshen Potato Farmers’ Cooperative, the group tried some banks but they refused to lend. It said the farmers were met with very stiff conditions for borrowing when they went to the banks to access the loan, noting that the lenders told them the money was meant for big commercial farmers.
Some stakeholders have said that frequent recourse to hand-outs, which is what some see the N300 billion loan facility as, are bound to have an inflationary impact on the economy. They say the problems of Nigeria’s agricultural sector are so many that a N300 billion loan facility will amount to just a drop of water in the ocean. According to them, the money can never make any meaningful impact.
Some fear that in the disbursement of the loan the choice of businesses to benefit from it could also be a problem, noting that part of the guidelines of accessing some of these loans are sometime tied to the business not being less than a certain whopping amount of money. They reckoned that except the few farms owned and managed by expatriates, it is always difficult for indigenous firms to get such loans in the sector.
The Bank of Agriculture (BoA) and National Orientation Agency (NOA) have partnered to improve the rate of loan repayment by farmers under the Anchor Borrowers policy.
NOA Director-General Dr. Garba Abari, in a statement by Head, Press Unit of the agency, Paul Odenyi, made this known when the NOA team visited BOA on Wednesday in Abuja.
Dr. Abari said the Federal Government had shown the necessary political will to reposition agriculture through its policy direction in the sector.
The NOA boss said both institutions have the relevant platforms to reposition agriculture to make widespread impact in the country.
BOA Managing Director Kabir Adamu said the programme was confronted with non-performing loans because farmers thought they were gifts.
Adamu said the bank hopes to register 15 million farmers in the next two years.
The Federal Government is to restructure the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) to support its diversification programme.
The Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, gave the hint at the launch of Capacity building and institutional strengthening of Bank of Agriculture in Kaduna.
Ogbeh, represented by Mr. Godwin Obinna-Opara, said the restructuring was aimed at strengthening the bank for optimal service delivery to farmers.
He said restructuring, re-capitalising and repositioning BoA was one of the programmes President Muhammadu Buhari had given approval.
He said the bank remained a key instrument for funding agricultural activities to help diversify the economy and move away from over reliance on oil.
“At no other time in the history of Nigeria that government had taken such interest and time to assess the operations of BoA to explore these potentials by adopting appropriate financing measures needed. Our country needs a financing mechanism that will help small holder farmers, agro-prenurials and SMEs access credit facilities at affordable cost. As a matter of fact, we’re looking at a single digit interest rate, that is what we believe in the ministry,” Ogbeh said.
Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor on Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), Mr Paul Eluhaiwe, said the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) “is sick and needs restructuring”.
He said BoA had the needed resources to turn its fortunes for the better.
“Posterity will not forgive us if we fail to turn it around because the bank has all the resources in this world to be turned around for the good of Nigerian farmers.
Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) Director-General Dr Vincent Akpotaire said BoA would be restructured to meet a model that would assist in doing agro- business, particularly with rural populace who are mostly farmers.
Akpotaire said: “Specifically, policy and regulation of the bank would undergo the needed restructuring, staff capacity and financial base. “Its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will also be restructured to meet international standard in agro-allied enterprises. I wonder why BoA will not succeed in Nigeria, if others have succeeded somewhere else in the world; there must be checks and balances in loan being given out. BoA should not just be a conduit for giving out loan, it should also be a conduit to recovering the loan being given out.”
Meanwhile, AfDB Chief Country Programme Officer Mr Andoh Mensah said the economic downturn had weakened BoA in bridging the gap between rural and urban populace in terms of accessing loans.
He pledged the support of the AfDB to BoA, saying: “We remain committed to working with BoA.’’
Earlier, BoA’s Acting Managing Director Mr Babatunde Igun said the bank was financially weak in addition to other challenges militating against its optimal performance.
He said the bank was working to improve its staff skills to enhance their capacity for effective service delivery.
Igun assured that the bank would brace for modern agricultural activities that would attract competitiveness and deliver its core mandate to farmers.
The AfDB recently approved a grant of $1.1 million for the Bank of Agriculture for its restructuring aimed at staff training to strengthen service delivery.
The Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe has said there is no going back on restructuring and repositioning of the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) to aide in diversifying the economy from over-dependence on oil as the major stay of the country’s economy.
Speaking yesterday in Kaduna during the launch of: Capacity Building and Institutional Strengthening of Bank of Agriculture Project, the minister said President Muhammadu Buhari has given the approval for the restructuring and repositioning of the bank.
Represented by Mr. Godwin Obinna Opara of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said, Ogbe said: “Restructuring, capitalising and repositioning of BoA is one of such programmes through which President Buhari has given his approval judging that its remains a key instruments required for funding agricultural activities to help diversify the economy away from this over-reliance on oil.
“At no other time in the history of Nigeria that government has taken such interest and time to assess the operations of BoA with a view to exploring these potentials by promotion of agricultural practice through initiating and adopting appropriate financing measures needed.He added, “Our country currently needs a financing mechanism that will help small holder farmers, agro-prenurials and SMEs access credit facilities at affordable cost. As a matter of fact, we’re looking at single digit interest rate, that’s what we believe in the Ministry.”
The Special Adviser to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor on Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), Mr. Paul Eluhaiwe said BoA is sick and needs restructuring.
He however, noted that BoA has all the resources to turn its fortunes for better. “Posterity will not forgive us if we fail to turn it around because the bank has all the resources in this world to be turned around for the good of Nigerian farmers,” he said.
The Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Dr. Vincent Akpotaire, said BoA will be restructured to meet a model that will help it do business, particularly with rural populace that are into agricultural business.
“Specifically, policy and regulation of the BoA will undergo due restructuring, staff capacity, financial base, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of the bank will be restructured to meet international standard in agro-allied enterprises.
“I wonder why BoA will not succeed in Nigeria if others have succeeded somewhere else in the world; there must be check and balance in loan being giving out, BoA should not just be a conduit for giving out loan, it should also be a conduit to recovering the loan being giving out,” Akpotaire said.
