The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Bank of Agriculture Limited (BOA), Mr. Kabir Adamu, has said that BoA has disbursed N895.5m as loans in Kwara State since its inception in the state.
However, he lamented that only N277.4m had been repaid while a whopping amount of N618.081m had yet to be repaid.
The BoA boss called on the beneficiaries yet to repay their loans to repay them so that they could access more and create opportunities for other beneficiaries.
Adamu, represented by the Executive Director, Retail Banking and Northern Operations, BoA, Mr Emmanuel Ameh, spoke on Thursday last week, during the inauguration of the BoA Erin-Ile branch in Oyun Local Government Area of Kwara State.
He said the community requested for the establishment of the bank and donated the office complex of the bank.
According to him, the BoA has five branches in Kwara, which are in Ilorin, Lafiagi, Okuta, Iwo-Isin and Erin-Ile.
“We finance agriculture and non-agriculture (projects). We have 141 branches nationwide; most of them are in the rural areas. The rural community can benefit, even rural traders, artisans can patronize us.
“Since inception, the bank has disbursed N895m in Kwara State; out of this, only N277m has been repaid. Out of this, N618m is outstanding. I have called on the people having such loans to pay back. Without paying back their e loans from the BoA, they cannot have any relationship with the bank again and they are denying genuine would-be borrowers the opportunity to access funds from the bank. The BoA charges between nine per cent and 14 per cent on its loans.”
He stated that the bank did not want bad loans even as he added that the branch would be run on the Bank of Agriculture Rural Business Initiative model.
Adamu stated that the model was anchored on the Federal Government’s concept of financial inclusion, which he stated fulfilled the bank’s primary mission of stimulating agriculture, improving lives, and growing communities by promoting sustainable agriculture and rural prosperity through effective credit support.
He added that it was targeted at people whose loan requirement would start from as low as N20,000 and largely unbanked.
According to him, the BoA has the mandate to provide services in agricultural value chain lending, nine agricultural lending, savings mobilization, and rural self-employment opportunities.
Adamu stated that the bank had been effective in implementing the Federal Government Anchor Borrowers Programme.
