CBN differ on access to Anchor Borrowers Fund: Fish Farmers
The CBN however refuted the claim saying that some of the fish farmers benefited from the ABP but refused to pay back.
Speaking exclusively on the sidelines of the Norwegian Seafood Seminar in Lagos, the fish farmers said that despite meeting the requirement to access the fund, the banks have refused to meet their financial needs.
Managing Director, of Frijay Consult, a Lagos-based fish farming company, Mrs Jerry Uwheraka, said those three years after her company perfected all the required documentation, she is yet to have her loan application approved.
Uwheraka alleged that banks and CBN are working in connivance against fish farmers by not approving applications submitted by farmers’ groups, accusing them of not being ready to implement the policy.
According to her, “The banks cannot even tell us the reason our loan applications are not approved, we just keep going back and forth, just for them to approve the applications. We have been waiting for some time and we have spent money to build farms. Most times the commercial banks will say they are waiting for approval from the Head office.
“We have even gone further to source for markets for farmed fish and up till this moment, the banks have refused to approve our applications.
“Even CBN has a portal through which they can approve applications but in that portal, you will discover that there is still an obstacle. We have challenged them to try a few of us and follow through to see how far we can go.”
Similarly, Mr Efe Oghenemaro, Executive Vice Chairman, Indigo Farms, an integrated agricultural farm based in Abuja, said that the banks have remained obstacles between the farmers and the scheme
Oghenemaro explained that banks are posing a problem because they do not understand the aqua-culture space, and agricultural space adding that they are more disposed to more profitable sectors such as oil and gas and communication.
He said: “They are unwilling to support local farmers to access this intervention fund even though CBN has already established guidelines for them to access it.
“But by the time you go to the banks, there is a problem with adequate collateral even though the government in its magnanimity has created avenues like Nigeria.
Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, NIRSAL, to guarantee such loans; you still find some banks refusing to accept the guarantee.
However, an official of the Central Bank of Nigeria, who spoke to Vanguard on the sidelines of the seminar on condition of anonymity, refuted the claims of the fish farmers saying that some of them have benefitted from the ABP but refused to pay back.
The official also stated that the situation got so bad that the management of the CBN had to set up a committee to recover the loans, adding that in virtually all sectors that CBN where intervened, it has experienced one form of sabotage or the other.
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