The applicants of the COVID-19 Targetted Credit Facility Loan, a palliative loan from the Central Bank of Nigeria disbursed through the Nirsal Microfinance Bank which featured the Household Loan and SME Loan, have decried their exclusion from the loan disbursement.
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele, had on 15th September, during the 13th Conference opening Ceremony of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) in Abuja, disclosed that N69 Billion out of the N100 Billion earmarked as COVID-19 Targetted Credited Facility Loan to Households and Small and Medium Entreprise Businesses severely affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic has been disbursed.
"We initially planned for N50bn to be disbursed. As we saw there are more and more need by households impacted by the pandemic, the CBN took a decision to increase the size of that intervention fund from N50bn to N100bn. And today close to N69bn of that loan has been disbursed to over 140,000 households and businesses," Emefiele stated.
The palliative Loan introduced by the Federal Government in April, 2020 to cushion the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) had many beneficiaries who applied between April and May receive Loans of up to N3Million per beneficiary which is disbursed by the NIRSAL Microfinance Bank at 5% interest rate for the 1st year and 9% interest rate for subsequent years for 3years maximum duration.
Following the initial disbursement of the Loan, many Nigerians who may not have been aware of the program tendered their application between June and July but have lamented that only those who applied between April and May have benefited from the low interest loan program.
The June and July applicants have called on the Federal Government to consider them in the remaining part of the funds yet to be disbursed to help them boost their business as many MSMEs have been affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Nirsal Microfinance Bank has stated that only those whom their loans are approved by the Central Bank would recieve their funds noting that several applicantions have been forwarded to the apex bank but have not been approval for disbursement of their Loans.
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