Yemisi Izuora
Bank of Industry (BoI), said it will disburse N10 billion to support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSME’s this year.
The bank said it has also projected N1.150trillion for the MSMEs sector in the next three years.
Speaking at 2017 budget defence, Waheed Olagunju, acting Managing Director of BoI, said N250 billion is to be disbursed in 2017 and N400 billion in 2018 while N500 billion would be extended to the sector in 2019.
According to him, The bank would sign-in more commercial banks and microfinance banks for on-lending to MSMEs.
He added that N10 billion had been earmarked for disbursement in 2017, and that the bank had commenced disbursement of the Dangote Legacy Fund given at zero percent interest rate, to some State Governments at 5 percent interest rate for the development of mini-cluster parks.
He said besides the state Governments which signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the bank, negotiation with Borno, Yobe, Jigawa and Adamawa would be concluded soon.
On the Federal Government’s Social Intervention Fund domiciled with the bank, Olagunju disclosed that N3.9 billion was released in November 2016, out of total sum of N140 billion of the total sum of N500 billion proposed for Social Intervention Programme, due to low revenue generation and economic challenges facing the country.
He put the proposed total operating cost for BoI in 2017 at N46.530 billion against N34.899 billion in 2016; profit before tax and impairment charges at N26.760 billion against N20.210 billion while interest income for 2017 was put at N40.218 billon against N27.741 billion in 2016.
His expressed optimism that at least N5 billion will be injected into the bank through the proposed re-capitalisation of the BoI and Bank of Agriculture (BoA).