UBA tops list of defaulting banks – A total of N2.05 billion was disbursed in October for seven projects under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS).
This is out of the N200 billion earmarked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for onward lending to farmers across the country. Under the scheme, cheap funds are made available to be accessed by farmers through commercial banks, as well as the various State government on behalf of farmers in their States.
“The CBN has released the sum of N137.32 billion for disbursement to 177 beneficiaries made up of 151 individuals/private promoters and 26 State governments that accessed N1.0 billion each.,” according to data posted on the CBN website.
A total of 16 banks were involved in the disbursement of the funds with United Bank for Africa topping the list with N38.9 billion, Union Bank with N15.343 billion, Zenith Bank with N15.33 billion, First Bank with N14.95 billion and Skye Bank with N8.67 billion. Others are Stanbic IBTC with N8.5 billion, Access Bank with N7.93 billion, Unity Bank with N6.7 billion and Fidelity Bank with N6.2 billion.
GT Bank disbursed N5.55 billion, Oceanic Bank N2.4 billion, Sterling bank N2.3 billion, Mainstreet Bank N2 billion, Citibank N1.5 billion, while Diamond Bank and WEMA Bank disbursed N.9 billion and N.16 billion respectively.
The CBN disclosed that N24.084 billion was withdrawn from eight banks for contravening the scheme’s guidelines. The highest was from United Bank for Africa from which N12.053 billion was withdrawn for 17 projects, followed by Skye and Union banks with N4 billion for two projects each and First Bank with N1.6 billion for one project. Access Bank gave up N1.2 billion for one project. From GT Bank,? Unity Bank, and Stanbic IBTC, N.581 billion, N.5 billion, and N.15 billion was withdrawn respectively, for one project each.