Reps query Bank of Agric over disbursement of N91.8bn loan to farmers

The House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture and Production Services on Wednesday berated the Bank of Agriculture for not providing adequate details about how N91.8 billion was disbursed as loans to beneficiaries since 2015.

Beneficiaries of the funds were anchor companies under the Central Bank of Nigeria ‘Anchor Borrowers Programme.

Acting Managing Director, Mr Alwan Ali Hassan, in a submission to the committee during an investigative hearing on Wednesday said since the commencement of the programme in November 2015, a sum of N91, 872, 687, 050.23 has been disbursed as at October 31, 2021, for all the models of the programme.

Of this figure, he said the total sum of N14, 678, 423, 065.03 was repaid leaving an outstanding balance of N77, 179, 823, 985.20 as of October 2021.

According to him, various sums totalling the said amount were paid to Private Anchor, Prime Anchor, Public Anchor (State Government), and commodity associations consisting of RIFAN, MAAN and NECAS respectively.

But the committee led by Hon Muntari Dandutse, rejected the submission, saying it did not provide adequate information on the identity of the beneficiaries and a breakdown of how the money was used.

The committee said the document submitted by the Bank of Agriculture was “grossly incomplete.

It stepped down the hearing and demanded that the BoA provides detailed relevant documents pertaining to the disbursement of the funds at the next meeting.

In a related development, the House Public Accounts Committee (PAC) also on Wednesday set up a sub-committee to probe how N2 billion paid to the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) for COVID-19 intervention from the service wide vote was used.

This was as the Acting Director of Finance and Accounts of the agency, Dzarma Levis, appeared before the committee to defend spending of releases made through the service-wide votes from 2013 to 2020.

“They collected N2 billion in 2020 for Covid intervention. The committee has perused their submission and is not satisfied with the claims of the agency because the due process certificate presented was not signed.

“So the committee is worried. So the committee thus resolved that a sub-committee be set up to go and inspect the claims of what the agency claimed to have done with the N2 billion,” the PAC chairman, Hon. Oluwole Oke asserted.

(Daily Independent)