By Victor Uzoho
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed plans to extend the single-digit interest rate of its various intervention facilities to March 1, 2023.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this at a news conference on Thursday in Abuja following a meeting of the Bankers Committee.
According to Emefiele, the apex bank would be reviewing the intervention programmes, to ensure that they continued to achieve the desired goals.
He said: “Although interest rates on our various intervention facilities are expected to revert to nine per cent effective March 1, 2022, we are announcing that the rates will remain at five per cent for another year. This is because of the promising trajectory we have established in economic growth and job creation.
“In effect, the concessionary interest rate of five per cent on our intervention facilities will now be extended until March 1, 2023.”
He also noted that the CBN, working with the Database Management Systems (DMS), and participating financial institutions, had granted over N3 trillion as intervention loans, critical to Nigeria’s economic recovery and employment generation.
Although interest rates on our various intervention facilities are expected to revert to nine per cent effective March 1, 2022, we are announcing that the rates will remain at five per cent for another year. This is because of the promising trajectory we have established in economic growth and job creation.
Intervention facilities
Emefiele, further disclosed that one of the CBN interventions to drive economic recovery, the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP), had disbursed N948 billion to 4,478,381 smallholder farmers, who cultivated 5.2 million hectares of farmland across the country, and created about 12.5 million direct and indirect jobs.
”Also, under its Targeted Credit Facility, meant to help households and businesses that suffered significant losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank disbursed N368.79 billion to 778,000 beneficiaries comprising 648,052 households, and about 130,000 SMEs,” he said.
He added that the bank also deployed N1.452 trillion to 337 projects in agriculture, manufacturing, services and mining under the Real Sector Support Facility.
“For the AGSMEIS programme, which caters to SMEs in agribusiness, a total of N134.63 billion was released to 37,571 SME projects, of which 67% were directly agriculture-related projects, 22.5% in services, while the balance was in fashion, Information Technology and related sub-sectors.
”Under the Nigeria Electricity Stabilisation Facility, a total of N229 billion was disbursed to nine DisCos, to help cover their financial obligations to upstream market participants.
“These interventions have helped to significantly improve liquidity in their ecosystem and increased electricity generation from 4,000 MW in 2020 to over 5,000 MW as of September 2021.
”The bank has also released N47.83 billion to 10 DisCos under the National Mass Metering Programme for the procurement of 858,026 electricity meters,” Emefiele said.
He noted that these disbursements have boosted revenue collection for DisCos, as this increased significantly to over N69 billion as of December 2021.
