Nigeria’s apex monetary authority, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it recorded N503 billion in repayment of loans under its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), representing 52.39 per cent.
Acting Director of Corporate Communications Department, Dr Abdulmumin Isa, announced this in a statement in Abuja on Monday.
Isa said that the apex bank remained committed to its developmental mandate of stimulating access to finance for real sector.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a recent report, said CBN had recovered only 24 per cent of loans extended to farmers under the ABP.
The IMF based its report on the information available at the time it was completed on January 12.
According to the IMF, agricultural credit in Nigeria has not significantly succeeded in boosting production.
The world financial body attributed this to the difficulty in targeting the correct recipients.
It said that although the CBN allowed farmers to pay in cash or turn in their produce of the same value, to the apex bank.
The repayments, IMF noted, had been very low.
Isa hinted that CBN had released about N1.1 trillion under the programme.
Out of this, N960 billion is due for repayment.
He said the ABP had supported about 4.57 million smallholder farmers.
These farmers have cultivated over 6.02 million hectares of 21 commodities across the country.
He listed the commodities cultivated to include rice, wheat, cowpea, millet, maize, cotton, fish, soya bean and poultry.
Others are cassava, groundnut, ginger, sorghum, oil palm, cocoa, sesame, tomato, castor seed, yellow pepper, onions and cattle/dairy.
The director said that the ABP had significantly helped to boost the national output of focal commodities.
Maize and rice peaking at 12.2 million metric tonnes and 9.0 million metric tonnes in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
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