NAN-AE-2
Financing
By Bayo Sekoni
Ibadan, Oct. 5, 2016, (NAN) A total of 15 micro finance institutions have accessed N338 million from the FGN/IFAD-assisted Rural Finance Institution Building Programme (RUFIN) to lend to farmers and micro enterprises in Oyo State.
The South West Coordinator of RUFIN, Alhaji Musa Abayomi, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Tuesday.
Abayomi said that the agency had reoriented microfinance banks to serve the rural communities and not just those in urban areas.
The coordinator said that RUFIN groups in three local government areas of Oyo State –Atisbo, Ibarapa East and Akinyele –had benefitted from loans from microfinance banks to enhance poverty reduction.
He said that the microfinance banks get money from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at an interest rate of two per cent and disburse same to farmers and micro enterprises at 9 per cent interest.
According to Abayomi, rural financing should not be for profit but to meet social needs.
The RUFIN coordinator said that the model created by the agency for rural business plan, if implemented and sustained, would ensure that businesses outlive their owners.
He explained that the model entails sets of members in the groups guaranteeing the loans obtained by others from the micro finance institutions thereby ensuring the continued existence of the business.
Similarly, the Oyo State Microfinance Officer/Coordinator of RUFIN, Mr Emmanuel Ogundiran, said that the activities of the agency had in the last six years assisted in raising financial inclusion in rural areas.
Ogundiran, however, said that the inability of the state government to pay its counter-part fund in the last five years had hindered the extension of the programme to the 33 LGAs in the state. (NAN)
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(Edited and controlled by Mufutau Ojo)