All is now set for the disbursement of the N2 billion micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSME) fund to 30,000 listed beneficiaries in Rivers State. The minimum lendable to an individual is N5,000, while maximum is N500,000, and cooperatives could get as high as N5 million.
The would-be beneficiaries have been told in which microfinance banks they would proceed immediately to open accounts for immediate drawdown, but Ipalibo Watson Sogules, the new managing director of the Rivers State Microfinance Agency (RIMA), says it is not true that the disbursement few days to the March 19, 2016 rerun elections has anything to do with politics.
Sogules told finance correspondents in Port Harcourt that the fund was not with RIMA but with the CBN, and so was above political manipulations. Besides, he said, the loans must be paid back less than one year at 9 percent interest, saying unserious borrowers were not allowed.
The managing director said a training seminar had been organised on February 27, 2016, for intending beneficiaries and that the governor was present to explain the seriousness of the CBN loan. Now, he said time had come for the disbursement so that the beneficiaries would start creating wealth.
He said: “Beneficiaries should move and open accounts in designated microfinance banks, including Cosmopolitan Microfinance in D-Line, Rime Growth Pathway at the State Secretariat, and Premium Microfinance Bank on Olu Obasanjo Road, all in Port Harcourt. The local council areas have been grouped to be served by each of the MFBs.
He said the loans were open to all citizens with genuine business plans, but he made it clear it was not a grant. The loan has two months moratorium and has no collateral requirement. He said the first step was awareness and training, followed by pre-qualification of MFBs.
“The CBN is watching vigilantly. We are not just giving loans we are also migrating our people to bigger scales from micro to medium scales,” he said.
On whether those rejected would not be found to be opposition party members, Sogules said politics had no place in the loans, saying the beneficiaries would do well despite hue and cry over insecurity in the state. “Security has been over-bloated but people are steadily doing business,” he said.
The managing director said RIMA had corrected the mistakes of the past when microfinance banks failed to recover the loans. This is what forced the then RIMA to create the Rural Finance Initiative (RFI) and the City Finance Initiative (CFI) that sought to bypass the microfinance banks and create pools of same businesses in the rural areas and city into cooperative-like bodies that were used as platforms for administering loans.
Now that RIMA has returned to the use of microfinance banks, he said many measures had been put in place to forestall any recurrence. The first managers of the N2.5 billion seed capital released by the state government had allegedly siphoned N500 million in a matter of months.
This forced the Chibuike Amaechi administration to scrap the management and searched out professionals led by Innocent Iyalla Harry, who managed the remaining N2 billion in four years to reach over 10,000 economically active poor.
Governor Nyesom Wike came to power and reorganised the management by bringing in Sogules with 18 years banking experience, and brought in CBN’s N2 billion to help reach 30,000 beneficiaries, but many critics suggest that political patronage could be an issue. The new managing director denies that and had urged the people to watch his steps and judge at last.
