The Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Mr Diko Radda has commended the Central Bank of Nigeria for scrapping the requirement to access N50bn COVID-19 credit.
Mr Radda made the remarks when he appeared as a guest on TVC news programme on June 9, 2020, monitored by NewsWireNGR.
NewsWireNGR recalls that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had on Monday said applicants for its N50bn targeted Credit Facility no longer needed guarantors form to access the COVID-19 funds .
“CBN waives the requirement for the provision of guarantors by Households and SMEs applying for its N50bn COVID-19 Targeted Credit Facility.
Speaking to Tuesday, the SMEDAN DG, urged small businesses to take advantage of the announcement by the CBN to recover some of the losses made as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The requirements are now not difficult to meet up with.
“We are happy with the CBN for waiving the guarantor form. They have also given a [telephone] number for people who don’t get a response after 48 hours of their application to call and find out why it is taking time.
“SMEs should take advantage of this and be able to access this funding so they can recoup from some of the losses they have suffered during this COVID pandemic.” he said.
In May, the institution used by the CBN for the credit facility, the Nirsal Microfinance bank (NMFB), came under criticism as small business owners lamented the difficulty of getting a level-14 civil servant to stand as a guarantor, which was the initial requirement.
Responding to the criticism at the time, the Managing Director of NMFB Abubakar Kure had explained that the lockdown across the FCT, Kano, Lagos, Ogun and other states, as well as technical difficulties had hindered the disbursement of the funds.
“You are all aware of the lockdown across the country and major cities. We have lockdown around Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt, and incidentally Kaduna. So all these major cities constitute a significant part of the applicants who applied for COVID [loans]. We are actually thinking outside the box to see how we can reach them so that they can come and have the loans.
“Currently what we do is that we are using digitalization in the form of emails. We send emails to those who have email accounts, we print their offer letters, send back to them, do the documentations and they are able to drawdown.
‘’The most important thing is about the lockdown and that’s why the credit facility was created. It also constitutes a challenge.”
Kure promised that the bank was working to improve the process.
“We are improving our processes, systems, people to be able to meet up with the expectations. You are fully aware that this loan is for a short term. It’s a short term seamless package by Central Bank intended to cushion the effect on businesses and people. However, because of the lockdown and the restriction of people, there have been delays. We have also noticed the issue around guarantors.” he said at the time.
