FG inaugurates committee on the restructuring of Agric Bank

Chief Audu Ogbeh

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh  has inaugurated the National Council on Privatization (NCP), Steering committee on the restructuring and recapitalization of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) and the project delivery team  at the minister’s conference room, Abuja. The launch brought together stakeholders from different sectors to oversee the affairs of the bank, as it is being repositioned by the newly appointed committee members.

Chief Ogbeh said the inauguration of the NCP Steering Committee (SC) on the restructuring and recapitalization of BOA and the project delivery team is to reposition the bank, adding that the essence of the FGN’s decision to embark on this strategic step is to also  revitalize the operations of the Bank of Agriculture which will make the bank more responsive to its mandate of serving as a veritable platform for providing loans to MSMEs, rural farmers and cooperatives, agro allied industries among others would enable them to meet the huge demand for agricultural produce  for local consumption and exports easy; farmers who require loan or funds to improve their production and to also attract the younger generation into agriculture, which was recently approved by the Vice President/ Chairman of NCP.

The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbanjo who was represented by the minister of agriculture/chairman of the NCP Steering Committee on the restructuring of the Bank of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh said the federal government is targeting N500 billion for the restructuring and recapitalization of the  BOA adding that if the government had a trillion naira, it wouldn’t mind, but to certainly begin at a very high figure,” but 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, but N500 billion is something that we could start with.”

Chief Ogbeh said the proposed restructuring and recapitalization strategy  is aimed at revitalizing the operations of the BOA “The BOA in its 20 years of existence has faced a myriad of challenges which include poor funding, poor stakeholders buy-in and erosion of shareholders’ funds among others,” he said.

Also speaking at the event, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele said, said as a result of the restructuring, the bank would be upgraded from a completely manual bank to an electronically driven financial institution as  it will also face responsibilities for which it was set up.

While assuring that loans given by the BOA will be more affordable and easily more accessible to farmers he said the loan given by .the CBN on the platform of the Anchor Borrowers Programme was already at single digits rates of 9%. 

Also speaking, the managing director / chief executive officer, BOA, Prof Danbala Danju said, “the recapitalization is a long awaited day because the bank ought to be properly recapitalized so that we could energize the agricultural sector in line with best practices all over the world”.

The committee chaired by Ogbeh had the ministers of Finance, Industry, Trade and Investment, National Planning and Governor of the Central Bank among others as members.