Bauchi moves to recover N1bn loan from farmers

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Alhaji Tasi’u Mohammed, explained this when he led the loan recovery committee to Ningi and Jama’are local government areas of the state in their effort to recover the loan.Tasi’u who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Dauda Abdullahi, said the CBN granted the loan to the state […]

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Alhaji Tasi’u Mohammed, explained this when he led the loan recovery committee to Ningi and Jama’are local government areas of the state in their effort to recover the loan.
Tasi’u who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Dauda Abdullahi, said the CBN granted the loan to the state government to enable farmers in the state to access the loan because of the effort of the state governor, Malam Isa Yuguda.
He said the loan was intended to enable the farmers to increase their production and boost their economy farmers towards sustainable food security in the country.
The commissioner lamented that though the loan is meant to be repaid by the farmers within two years, they are yet to start repaying one year after collecting the facility, saying the non-commencement for the repayment of the loan is delaying access to additional N2 billion loan that could have been disbursed to other farmers in the state.
Tasi’u said there is need for farmers to fulfill their obligations by paying the loan as at when due for the development of agriculture in the state, saying the state government has procured over 100 tractors that would be distributed as loan to farmers through cooperative societies and that government has also made it a policy that co-operative societies that pay their debt would be considered first for the tractors.
The General Manager of Bauchi State Cooperative and Financing Agency (CFA), Alhaji Ibrahim Abubakar Sadiq, said the agency has distributed N1 billion loan to over 1,280 farmer’s co-operative societies in the state, adding that out of the amount N50 million was distributed to cotton farmers across the state to boost cotton production.
Sadiq said the farmers have the option of either paying the money back directly to the accounts opened by the state government in any of the four banks nearest to them or bringing their agricultural produce to the government to buy directly from themand use the proceeds of the sales to pay part of their debt.
Representative of the Central Bank Governor, Alhaji Mas’ud Ibrahim Tulu, said the bank had earlier earmarked N200 billion loan to boost farming activities in the country.
Tulu said if Bauchi State Government paid the N1bn they accessed last year, the CBN will double the amount for farmers in the state to access this year and commended the state government for its effort to boost farm production in the state.
In the places visited by the committee, leaders of farmers associations explained their readiness to start paying the debt to enable others to also access loan.