Anchor Borrowers’ Programme
OpenLife Nigeria reports that the federal government celebrated Anchor Borrowers’ Programme has been described as a fraud.
Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra State stated this earlier today on Arise TV.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in line with its developmental functions as enshrined in Section 31 of the CBN Act 2007, established the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) to create economic linkages between smallholder farmers (SHFs) and reputable companies (anchors) involved in the production and processing of key agricultural commodities.
The core of the Programme is to provide loans (in kind and cash) to smallholder farmers to boost agricultural production, create jobs, reduce food import bill towards conservation of foreign reserve.
The Programme evolved from consultations with stakeholders comprising Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development, state governments, agro-processors, commodity associations, financial institutions and smallholder farmers to ramp up agricultural production, boost non-oil exports and diversify the revenue base of Nigeria.
The broad objective of the ABP is to create economic linkages between smallholder farmers and processors with a view to increasing agricultural output and ensuring food price stability.
The targeted beneficiaries are smallholder farmers and medium to large scale farmers engaged in the production of agricultural commodities across the country including Rice, Maize, wheat, Cotton, Cassava, Potatoes, Yam etc.
However, Obi who was the Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the 2019 general elections, described the programme as a failure and clever means of exploiting and deceiving the unsuspecting masses by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
He emphasized that the objective of the programme has failed given the high cost of rice and other agriculture produce in the market even when the programme was meant to cushion the unbearable standard of living.
Specifically, Obi said that large-scale rice farmers cannot access the funds saying that small farmers are used to siphoning the funds.
“I have been to Kura Rice in Kano and I can tell you that the story is different.”
Asked if Godwin Emefiele, the Central Bank Governor should be blamed for such failure, Obi exonerated Emefiele saying that he is a good man.
He however heaped the blame on APC stalwarts who are stealing the money to fund subsequent elections.
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