Beneficiaries of the scheme aimed at enhancing large scale farming across Nigeria, included both private and public sector players in the agricultural value chain.
The CBN director said the intervention was aimed at supporting the federal government’s quest for food security, especially with the border closure and the global lockdown that came with the coronavirus pandemic.
Yusuf said, “The CACS is really to fast track food processing across the entire value chain and this has been our successful intervention.
“Private sector players and also state governments have accessed it for either rice processing mills, cassava processing mills or to do large scale farming.”
Speaking on the need for the country to be self-sufficient, he said, “because of the protectionist mode that a lot of countries are going into, there’s an opportunity for us to properly diversify into agriculture.
“We really need to start looking at how we can ensure we have food self-sufficiency and also begin to export to earn more foreign exchange.
“We have significant land that has been unlocked and so we need also to ensure we are doing a lot of processing in-country.”
Yusuf also spoke on the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme launched by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, saying it has been largely successful.
According to Yusuf, without the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, especially since the pandemic, “I can imagine what would be happening in Nigeria.”
He spoke on other development finance interventions and the funds disbursed so far by the apex bank, saying, “Once the COVID started in China, what the leadership of CBN under Governor Emefiele did was to try and create different scenarios of how we would respond to the pandemic depending on how it affects Nigeria.
“With N3.5 trillion, the first thing we did was to put in place a N50 billion Targeted Credit Facility for households and SMEs. As I speak to you, we have disbursed N72 billion to over 120, 000 beneficiaries and Governor Emefiele has increased the fund from N50 billion to N100 billion.”
Yusuf added, “We also put in place N100 billion credit support for the healthcare sector. We provided them cheap access at five per cent, through the deposit money bank to access the N100 billion set aside. As we speak, we’ve disbursed over N44 billion to over 40 projects.
“We also looked at helping to domesticate our pharmaceutical and hospice-related activities. We also set aside N1 trillion for our manufacturing sector; that’s where we have huge, significant employment – textile, housing, food and agro-processing, etc. – and during the COVID-19 period, we have disbursed over N200 billion to a wide range of people.”
Earlier, in his opening remarks, the Deputy Governor, Corporate Services of the CBN, Mr. Edward lamtek Adamu, said the CBN was focused stimulating economic growth.
Adamu said, “I want to reiterate the strong commitment of the CBN towards supporting measures that would bring the nation from our over dependence on imported goods, so that we can create wealth, create jobs for our teaming youths and just improve lives and livelihood of Nigerians as we strive to promote a very stable financial system.
“I want to emphasis what the CBN governor has consistently said, that the central bank is committed to its core mandate of maintaining price and exchange rate stability. We are also committed to ensuring that we have a conducive macroeconomic environment for growth.
“We are committed to fostering development for an efficient credible and reliable credit system. We are committed to a very stable exchange rate and the growth of our reserves and diversifying the economy…
“We are committed to supporting the diversification through our intervention programmes and development finance in the agric sector, manufacturing sector, MSMEs because they are critical to the development of the economy.” (Thisday)
