The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that the total loan repayments under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) stood 52 per cent in February, in reaction to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which claimed that only 24 per cent of loans disbursed under the ABP had been repaid.
In a statement released on Monday by the acting director of corporate communications department at the CBN, AbdulMumin Isa, the apex bank disclosed that it has released N1.079 trillion as of 28 February, of which N960 billion was due for repayment.
Mr Isa said the ABP, launched in November 2015 by President Muhammadu Buhari to boost agricultural production and reverse Nigeria’s negative balance of payments on food, supported about 4.57 million smallholder farmers who cultivated over 6.02 million hectares of 21 commodities across the country.
Citing statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FOA), Mr. Isa noted that the ABP also contributed significantly to the increased national output of commodities, with maize and rice peaking at 12.2 and 9.0 million metric tonnes in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
