The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, during a meeting with the management team of BoI led by the bank’s Acting Managing Director, Mr Waheed Olagunju, on Wednesday, called on the Bank Of Industry to increase lending to the agricultural sector so as to reduce the level of unemployment in the country.
Ogbeh said with the attention of the current government fixed on diversifying the economy away from oil, there is the need to boost productivity in the agriculture sector particularly in the area of agro-processing. He added that there is a lot of disenchantment in the country as a result of the huge level of unemployment and that the government would no longer tolerate the era where banks have apathy to agricultural lending.
“We have been running a system in the commercial banking sector where the door was almost shut to beginners and I don’t want to go into details of how interest rates have remained high for 30 years between 1986 and now. Young people are finding it difficult to access loan. If we want young people to live and achieve their aspiration, we need to do what we can to shift the focus by creating a platform for them to access loan to become entrepreneurs.”
The minister said the government would put in place passable mechanism as well as the needed support to ensure that the loans are repaid by borrowers.
To achieve this, he said he is planning to build an agro-processing park for young people noting that this would assist in reducing some of their operating costs and that the park would be modeled after the one built in China and would also have all the necessary infrastructure to support businesses.
“We will make sure the park has all the facilities such as water, electricity and others. We cannot continue as a country to let our youth suffer. We are also trying to move industries to the villages so that people don’t have to migrate into the big cities to find jobs,” he added.
In response to the Minister’s request, the BoI boss affirmed its support, adding that the request was in line with the objective of the bank in reducing the level of poverty and unemployment in the country.
Olagunju said, “We assure you that we are up to the task. We are ready to support the ministry and we will come up with a business loan solution within the shortest time possible to fit your requests. We are conscious of the fact that we need to hit the ground running and we will do all our best to unlock finance for our youth in the agric sector particular in agro processing.”
