Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has disclosed that N3 trillion worth of loans have been disbursed to households, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs), smallholder farmers and pharmaceutical companies as buffer against the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He made this known in an interview with Arise Television on the sidelines of the recently-concluded Nigerian International Partnership Forum in Paris, France.
He also dismissed insinuations that the CBN was overreaching its statutory bounds, saying the bank has continued to play its monetary management role effectively.
Emefiele explained that the job of the CBN was to complement the efforts of the fiscal side, emphasising that it had never happened in the country where the central bank would lend funds for a tenure of 10 years with a two-year moratorium, like the CBN had done in recent times.
“And I can tell you this, between 2020 and now, our data shows that we have disbursed at least N2 trillion, almost N3 trillion in loans to households, to MSMEs, to smallholder farmers, to pharmaceuticals and health institutions.
“ We have also given these funds to some of our large agricultural companies that want to get back again to business, to manufacturing companies who are accessing long term 10 years loan with two-year moratorium with single digit rate. I have data that shows we are playing our part,” he said.
Explaining the recently launched “100 for 100 “, Emefiele said it was floated to support employment creation and assured that the apex bank would do everything possible to provide foreign exchange to import plants and machinery.
He added that the programme would complement the plan by President Muhammadu Buhari to create millions of jobs and make credit available at a cheap rate even for a long tenure.
