The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has, since inception of the Commercial Agriculture Credit scheme (CACS) in 2009 to October 2015, released the sum of N318.145 billion to the economy for 399 projects.
The CACS was established to finance large ticket projects along the agriculture value chain. The scheme is being administered at a single digit rate of 9 percent to beneficiaries for a period of up to seven years.
Highlight of activities/achievements of the scheme revealed that the sum of N7.300 billion was released from CACS Repayment Account to three banks in respect of one private and two state projects in the month under review.
In pursuit of the real sector development, with special focus on seven commodities (rice wheat, sugar, fish, diary, oil palm and cotton), a total sum of N45.698 billion was released to the rice sub-sector in October 2015. The cumulative sum of N75.184 billion has been released to the economy in respect of all the focal commodities as at October 2015, the CBN said in a report.
The report shows that from January to date, 2015 a total of 937,044 jobs were created, while the cumulative job created from inception to date is 1,131,600.
According to the report, the sum of N6.318 billion was recorded as repayments by nine banks in respect of sixty-six projects bringing the total fund repaid to N180.086 billion in respect of 140 fully repaid projects and 148 steady repayments at end of October, 2015. Meanwhile, Six out of the 357 private projects are owned and managed by women.
The report noted that no bank was sanctioned for infringements during the month under review. However, the balance of CACS penalty account as of October 2015 was N1.413billion.
Under Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (ACGS), in October 2015, the number of loans guaranteed totalled 11,536 valued N1.552 billion by two Deposit Money Banks and 34 microfinance banks. This is in comparison with 5,134 loans valued N0.621 billion guaranteed in September 2015. This indicated an increase in number and value of 6,402 or 124.69 percent and N0.931b or 149.92 percent respectively. The total loans guaranteed from inception in 1978 to October 2015, is 990,292 valued N94.366 billion.
The analysis of loans guaranteed indicated that Jigawa State granted the highest number of loans with 2,750 loans, followed by Zamfara and Ogun State, which granted 1,201 and 1,080 loans, respectively, in October 2015.
