…says over eight million Nigerians applied for COVID-19 TCF intervention
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has disclosed that it has received over eight million applications from Nigerians for it’s COVID-19 Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) to help households and businesses.
CBN’s Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr Osita Nwanisiobi, disclosed this on Saturday, while fielding questions from journalists in Enugu during a one-day interactive enlightenment session with organised labour and Civil Society groups on the five-year policy thrust of the CBN.
Nwanisiobi, who said that CBN would not rest on its oars as the TCF had helped Nigerians exit recession and post the current Gross Domestic Product, GDP, of 5.01 percent growth in the nation’s economy, said over 600,000 applicants have benefited in the intervention so far.
Speaking specially on some concerns raised that residents of Enugu State didn’t receive the CBN credit facility, the CBN’s Director Corporate Communications said, “that would not be true but if you tell me that there are people who still need Covid-19 facility and who have not received it honestly, I will agree with you.”
He said, “We started with about N50 billion. We moved to N100 billion, to N300 billion, today we are talking about N400 billion. Now the number of applications that we have is over eight million applications and we have done over 600,000.
“Now will people complained that they haven’t received it? The answer is yes – you see the number and then you see what we are doing. But the reality is that we are not resting on our oars, that the governor is actually very passionate because he has also seen that what we have done in this regard also help Nigerians exit recession and to post the kind of GDP that we have posted and so he is poised to do more.”
On the reason behind the targeted stakeholders for the interactive session, Nwanisiobi said, the enlightenment was to educate the labour leaders who were critical stakeholders on the Central Bank policies, interventions and programmes and also initiatives so that they can help educate their followers.
He added, “we believe that the organised labour, the labour unions that they are significant stakeholders in this country and our mission here is to speak to their leaders about what we are doing in Central Bank, so that they will be able to take this message down to their own people in the language they will also understand; so that they will be at pace with what we are doing in CBN.
“Essentially it is a sensitization programme, it is an enlightenment programme, it is a programme to educate them on what the Central Bank of Nigeria is doing and also to elicit responses from them.
“We want to see how what we are doing is also impacting on the average Nigerian. And so, this interaction will also give us that opportunity to listen to them and to hear from them from the perspective of the Nigerian people.”
Also speaking, the Director, National Institute for Labour Studies (NILS), Comrade Issa Aremu commended the role of CBN in leading the policy discussion in away that we are now having policies that complement the Federal Government agricultural revolution.
He however, said that it was time for us to produce what we consume and consume what we produce, adding “because that is the only way that we can grow the economy.”
