Chairman Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Senator Ayo Akinyelure, has called for improved funding of NIRSAL Micro- Finance Bank to enable the bank’s credit facility get to more MSMEs operating in the country.
He made the call when the Managing Director of NIRSAL Microfinance Bank, Abubakar Abdullahi Kure and his management team visited the National Assembly to brief parliamentarians on the workings of the bank.
The Lawmaker representing Ondo Central at the upper chamber of the Nigerian National Assembly, while lauding the management of the bank for a job well done, expressed doubt about the recovery of over N500 billion loan given out to both the MSMEs and under household funding during COVID-19 pandemic.
He said the said the criteria under which the loans were granted to Nigerians made recovery difficult.
“To me, NISRAL gave out these monies as grant to Nigerians because I don’t see how you are going to collect over N500 billion back from the criteria required for the acquisition of these loans.
“With these, if there is any recommendation or way forward that the management feels they can enlighten us on, they should put it out, we will go back to the Senate “Since recovering this money will be difficult for NIRSAL because of the time it was disbursed, let’s request that CBN give them fresh fund so they can be able to give it out to persons that they can be able to recover it from.
“About N180 billion outside is gone, and we can’t wait until it is recovered before another fund can be disbursed.
“In countries like the US , they gave their citizens free money over four times.
“For this agency to meet it’s loaded objectives fresh funds should be released to them,” he said.
According to him, NISRAL objective was a good one, adding that it has advantages over other micro finance houses.
