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Jigawa State Governor, Umar Namadi
The Jigawa State Government has expressed concern over the slow disbursement of funds to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) under the N6bn Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Bank of Industry.
Commissioner for Information, Youth, Sports, and Culture, Sagir Ahmad, while briefing journalists on the outcomes of the State Executive Council meeting held at the Government House on Tuesday, said the pace of the disbursement exercise had been unsatisfactory.
According to Ahmad, the council reviewed the MoU’s implementation and found that the disbursement process contradicted its original intent, which was to provide soft loans to medium and small-scale businesses in the state.
He explained that the government initially contributed N2bn as a matching fund, which was equally matched by the BoI with another N2bn. Additionally, the government contributed another N2bn under a managed fund arrangement to further expand access to funding for SMEs.
Despite this significant investment, Ahmad lamented that the disbursement process had been very slow.
As a result, the State Executive Council has directed the BoI management to accelerate loan approvals and ensure faster disbursement to eligible beneficiaries.
The council also ordered a review of the MoU to include provisions that would ensure seamless and timely access to funds for qualified applicants.
“The state committee overseeing the BoI partnership has also been mandated to invite officials of the bank’s state branch for further discussions to resolve the identified challenges,” Ahmad added.
Providing further updates from the meeting, Ahmad said the council had approved the implementation of various constituency projects under the Ministry of Basic Education, amounting to N347,645,818.52.
These projects include the construction of Islamiyya schools, SUBEB-type classrooms, renovation of classroom blocks, and supply of books, chalk, and school uniforms.
The commissioner stated that these projects would be executed across the 20 local government areas in the state to enhance the quality of education.
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