House of Reps hails Boi’s disbursement of intervention fund
•Wants DFI to improve access to underserved
THE House of Representatives committee members on industr y, trade and in vestment have lauded the Bank of Industry (BOI) for its disbursement to support industrial and entrepreneurship development in the countr y.
The commendation was made when members of the house committee, led by the house committee Chairman, Abubakar Moriki during an oversight function to some of the industrial firms supported by the Development Finance Institution (DFI) in Lagos.
Moriki stated that the DFI has a crucial role to play in revamping industries that have gone moribund as a result of inadequate funding to carry out their operations.
According to him, the bank’s mandate to drive industrial growth in the country has helped to save the country from spending its hard earned foreign exchange on products it has the competitive and com- parative advantage of producing.
“The committee is here in Lagos to oversight the activities and operations of the BOI. We are here to interface with them and also to know their challenges. We have been briefed of the bank’s historical evolution and its equity structure, balance sheet over the years and indeed, I will say at this juncture that as a typical development finance institution, the bank is doing very well.”
He however called on the management of BOI to seek ways on how to reach a balance on how to make its intervention funds more accessible to prospective customers without compromising on its stringent conditionalities.
On the stringent conditionalities put in place by the bank for prospective customers to access BOI loans, he said the loans have to be protected, but stated that this move by the bank would not deter more prospective customers to access loans from the bank.
“We want them to see the aspirations of people against the background of the stringent conditionalities put in place in order to see how a balance can be reached between the stringent conditionalities and the wishes of the people to have soft loans without con- ditionalities. By so doing, something could be achieved in the interest of the bank not without compromising the conditionalities which would also be possible for the prospective industrialist to take advantage of the financing,” he said.
Representing the Managing Director, BOI, Olukayode Pitan, the Executive Director, SME, BOI, Waheed Olagunju, said more than 96 per cent of its risk assets are performing.