1387 businesses in Rivers receive N800 million micro credit scheme

Managing Director River State Mic refinance Agency Pastor Jonathan Tobin has said that 1387 businesses in Rivers State have received N800,000,000.00 from the state micro finance credit scheme. This was as the Rivers State Microfinance Agency, RIMA, said it has recorded 1,600 cases of impersonation by some applicants, adding that the figure represented those who applied for the loan claiming another people’s businesses to access the business credit. Speaking in Port Harcourt, Pastor Jonathan Tobin, said that state government partnered the Bank of Industry, BoI, in the scheme in order to touch lives and create wealth in the state. Tobin, who said the scheme has been successful, said that more women borrowed from the loan scheme more than men, adding that over 13 persons living with disabilities were another sets the beneficiaries.

He said “in the N4 billion from the Bank of Industry, we have done four tranches of N200,000,000.00 for each of the groups. We have a little above 4000 applicants on our data base who are applying for the loan. We first had 481 applicants for the first N200 million. What we do is, when we get people we send their names to BOI Lagos. BOI do their due diligence on the applications. When they are done they will send the N200 million per tranche. Then we send N50 million out for disbursement. When they disburse 75% of the N200 million which will be N150 million we forward another batch to BOI for due diligence. In the first batch 381 individuals benefited. 312 benefitted in the seconds tranche while 321 individuals got thee funds in the third tranche. We are now on the fourth tranche and 340 will benefit from the fourth round. In total 1387 business will be benefitting from the loan valued at N800,000,000.00. In the total number we have 818 females while 58.7% of the total number of the beneficiaries and their application is valued at N469,495,760.00.

“So it is clear that more woman borrowed. In this Male 41% of the are men valued at N330,544,000.00, whereas 13 people living with disabilities accessed N5,005,000.” He said that for customers seeking to access more than N10 million and above that BOI has disbursed to eight applicants and that another tranche of 17 applicants would soon get the funding. He said “BOI has disbursed to 8 customers valued at N119,888,000. Another 17 customers are due for disbursement. By next week the 17 customer valued at N217,444,858,000 would have been disbursed.” Tobin regretted that there are so many sharp practices among the applicants, but noted that RIMA has remained discreet in assessing those who benefit from the process. “There are so many sharp practice. So we have commenced verification programmes. We visit business unexpectedly.1600 cases of impersonation has been recorded. They use somebody’s shop to stand as their own. Some of the applicants do not have any shop. We are doing everything to ensure that we have micro credit available for business in the state based on the plan of the governor. We encourage the people of the state to take the loan and pay back in record time,” be said.