CBN’s Anchor Borrower Programme beneficiaries under scrutiny

Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State has officially opened a 12-member committee that will look into the recipients and execution of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrower Programme.

To foster economic relationships between smallholder farmers and respectable businesses, or “anchors,” engaged in the production and processing of important agricultural commodities, the CBN launched the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme in accordance with its developmental mandate.

The main goal of the plan is to lend money to smallholder farmers in kind and cash so they can increase agricultural output, generate jobs, and lower their food import costs while protecting their foreign exchange reserves.

But it was said that the smallholder farmers either failed to repay loans or, acting as cooperatives, raised the price of their produce so much that Nigerians could not afford it.

In Katsina on Saturday, Ibrahim Kaula, Mr. Radda’s media assistant, said that the governor had given the committee instructions to look into the government’s involvement in the scheme and gauge its level of commitment.

The committee’s duties also include tracking down programme participants and making sure they reimbursed the loans they received.

Mr. Kaula said, “It was also required to offer recommendations that would help the state government overcome obstacles impeding the program’s successful implementation.”

The state government’s secretary, Abdullahi Garba-Faskari, is the committee’s chairman, he continued, and the governor’s office’s Aliyu Isah serves as secretary.

Additionally, Mr. Kaula said that Mr. Radda had given the committee a task to carefully complete in order to demonstrate the trust that had been placed in its members.

The committee has until December 7 to turn in its report, which is due in two weeks.