An industry report showed that the CBN has within the last 7 years claimed to create an amazing 6.2 million jobs for Nigerians, Financial Vanguard reports. This is in addition to the over N2 trillion Naira it claims to have pumped into 1686 projects nationwide.
Projects that were listed by the CBN include financing a bond floated by the Debt Management Officer (N200 billion), 460 agricultural projects (N373.7 billion, 1,132,260 jobs), Small and Medium Enterprises Restructuring and Refinancing Facility (SMERRF) (N200 billion, 89,860 direct jobs), Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF) (N220 billion) among others.
The SMERF, it was noted by the report, was ‘administered at seven per cent per annum payable on quarterly basis’, with the Bank of Industry, BOI, entitled to one per cent management fee and the banks, a spread of 6 per cent. Loans granted under this scheme have a maximum tenor of 15 years and or working capital facility of one year with provision for roll over.
The report further stated that “the quest by Nigerians for cheap imported goods, underutilization of installed capacity due to inadequate raw materials as a result of low agricultural productivity, infrastructural constraints such as transport and electricity are increasing the cost of production of economic operators in the country.”, Financial Vanguard reports.
It is a source of wonder, though, that with such massive number of jobs created the Nigerian unemployment rate is not reducing, but rather increasing.
Parts of this article originally appeared in Financial Vanguard.
