BOI Begin Disbursement Of AfDB $500m Fund

The Bank of Industry (BOI) on Friday announced that it would soon commence the disbursement of the African Development Bank’s 500 million dollars fund to industrialists in Nigeria.

The Chairman of the bank’s Shareholders Committee, Mr Muhammed Dikwa, announced the plan at the 53rd Annual General Meeting of the bank in Abuja.

Dikwa said that the Federal Government facilitated the acquisition of the fund in order to deepen the bank’s credit delivery process and funding of the industrial sector at concessionary rates.

“As soon as BOI complies with the disbursement process which has reached an advanced stage, the Nigeria industrialists will start benefiting from the incentive-backed facility,” he said.

Aside from the AfDB’s funds, he said that there were other existing development fund initiatives under the bank’s management, including the five billion naira BOI/Dangote Small-Scale Businesses Development Fund.

Other available funds are N100 billion Cotton, Textile and Garment (CTG) Fund, National Automotive Council (NAC) Fund, NFRA Rice Processing Intervention Fund, Cement Fund, Dikwa said.

He added that Cottage Industries Fund and Small-Scale Processing Fund and National Sugar Development Fund were also available.

Dikwa also stated that the bank recorded increment in fund disbursement by five per cent from N218.8 billion in 2011 to N229.18 billion in 2012 and that the number of beneficiaries also increased from 498 in 2011 to 534 in 2012.

According to him, BOI’s schemes have generated indirect employment with the cumulative turnover of the obligators increasing from N503.17 billion per annum before intervention, to N659.15 billion after.

“Direct employment by beneficiaries increased from an average of 62,097 before intervention to 76, 581 after intervention, representing an increase of 23 per cent,” he said.

The chairman also said that total fund disbursed under the N300-billion Power and Aviation Fund (PAIF) increased by 23 per cent from N147 billion in 2011 to N181 billion in 2012.

He claimed that the beneficiaries under the PAIF scheme had been able to increase their investments in assets and revenue base as a result of lower obligations that they were given on the loan.

“The PAIF scheme has helped in promoting the development of long-term bank credits for infrastructure financing and institutional capacity building for financing power projects within the banking sector,” he said.