CBN defends SMEs development fund initiative •As Osun sets to commission multi-million naira Ayegbaju market

CBN defends SMEs development fund initiative •As Osun sets to commission multi-million naira Ayegbaju market

Osun State Branch Controller of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Macduff Okorode Efetabore, has given  the reason for  the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to develop the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
He attributed it to the need to channel the long term, low interest funds to Nigerian economy through participating financial institutions.
He said over two million Nigerians with 60 per cent of them, women entrepreneurs had benefited within the period of ten years.
CBN boss also stated that the management team of the bank recognised  the strategic closeness of the state governments to the Nigerian  citizens at the grassroots, thereby making it important stakeholders  in the administration of the fund, adding that the Central Bank of  Nigeria (CBN) had developed operational guidelines for the state  government’s participation in the SMEs development fund.
  However, Osun State governor, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, has  declared that the state government, as part of its economic drive, had concluded arrangement to commission the Multi Million naira  Osogbo Ayegbaju International market soon for traders  across the state, stressing that the state government had also  concluded plan by the next few weeks to empower the women of the state  with the total sum of six hundred million naira.
Governor Aregbesola, who spoke through his Commissioner for Finance,  Economic Planning and Budget Development, Dr Wale Bolorunduro, as a  Special Guest of Honour to declare open a one- day sensitisation workshop on the  220 billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises  Development Fund(MSMEDF), organised by the Osun State branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for stakeholders, held at GMT Hotel, Osogbo at the weekend, maintained that the government had worked out  modalities with micro finance banks to disburse the loan to the  beneficiaries of the government gesture.
The governor, who urged the people, especially women of the state to  maximise the opportunity of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) loan, described women as a major factor in the economic development  of the state, promising that the state was ready to maximise the apex  bank loan for the development of the state and its citizenry.

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Effetabore asserted: “The MSMED fund has two broad objectives  which are social and commercial .The social and development fund shall  constitute 10 per cent, break down as follows: grants five per cent, interest  drawback three per cent, managing agents’ operation cost two per cent, the commercial fund shall constitute 90 per cent of the fund as follows; wholesale funding-90 per cent of the commercial component and guarantees and refinancing-10 per cent of the commercial component.
“Considering the peculiar challenges faced by women in accessing  financial services in Nigeria, the revised micro-finance policy, regulatory and supervisory frame work in section4.
(1V), provides that women’s access to financial services should  increase by 15 per cent annually  in order to eliminate gender disparity. In order to achieve this, 60 per cent which is 132.00 billion of the fund had been earmarked for providing financial  services to women.
 “In operating the fund, special consideration shall also be given to  institutions that will provide financial services to graduates of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Entrepreneurship Development Centres (EDCs).”