NIRSAL Guarantees Over N61bn Worth Of Agric Projects

farmland

The N61bn agric projects guaranted by the Nigeria Incentive Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) has been described as a rescue to the nation’s diversification plan.

A development expert, Ibrahim Mohammed who asserted this in an article sent to LEADERSHIP, stated that NIRSAL through the CBN has guaranteed, 454 projects valued at N61bn with the sum of N753 million paid out as interest rebate to borrowers who repaid promptly to encourage good repayment behaviour thereby minimizing default

He said‘ In the final analysis, NIRSAL as a public liability company wholly owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria is expected to lay the foundation and manage the processes required for massive foreign  and domestic investment inflow in the agricultural subsector of Nigeria’s economy’.

In an article, made available to LEADERSHIP Newspaper over the weekend, the Public commentator  revealed that, since inception to the end of 2015” NIRSAL has trained over 112,000 farmers across the country during its incubation as a project implementation office within the Development Finance Department of the CBN”

He said “ it a $ 500 Million (N100 billion) public private initiative (wholly owned by the Central bank of Nigeria) which was incorporated as a Public Limited Liability Company and licensed as a Non-Bank  Financial Institution with the primary mandate of facilitating the flow of credit to agribusiness value chain players and collaborating with stakeholders to fix broken agricultural value chains in Nigeria”.

“It is worthy of note that from inception in 2012/13 to the end of year 2015, during its incubation as a project implementation office within the Development Finance Department of the CBN, 454 projects valued at N61.161 billion have been guaranteed by NIRSAL, with the sum of N753.36 million paid out as interest rebate to borrowers who repaid promptly to encourage good repayment behaviour thereby minimizing default. In addition, to date, NIRSAL has trained over 112,000farmers across the country” he said
Further unveiling the focal functions of NIRSAL, the commentator said “The company essentially administers a risk sharing fund designed to identify, redefine, measure, re-price and evolve strategies to de-risk and catalyze lending to the Nigerian agriculture value chain.