President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has on Friday, August 1, 2023, gave a marching order to relevant security agencies to recover the over N500 billion unrecovered balance of the Anchor Borrowers scheme from beneficiaries.
WikkiTimes‘ findings show that out of the N1.1 trillion disbursed by the CBN to the beneficiaries across the 36 states of the federation, only about N546 billion (48.62%) has been repaid while a whopping balance of N577 billion (51.38%) remains unaccounted for.
Data from StatiSense, a data technology company, indicated that not less than N549.5bn was released to farmers in the 10 northern states through the anchor borrowers’ programme between 2015 and 2022.
The data shows that Kaduna topped the list of northern states with over N139 billion released to beneficiaries in the state in seven years. Similarly, Niger: ₦61.8bn; Kano: ₦58.2bn; Sokoto: ₦49.3bn; Jigawa: ₦48.1bn and Kebbi: ₦42.6b. Others in that order are Katsina: ₦42.5bn; Borno: ₦36.5bn; Gombe: ₦36.1bn and Zamfara State with ₦34.5bn.
WikkiTimes recalls that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in line with its functions in Section 31 of the CBN Act 2007, established the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) to create economic linkages between smallholder farmers (SHFs) and companies (anchors) involved in the production and processing of key agricultural commodities.
The administration of former president, Mohammadu Buhari launched the program in 2015 aimed at providing loans (in kind and cash) to smallholder farmers to boost agricultural production, create jobs, and reduce food import bills towards the conservation of foreign reserves.
