Intervention funds: FG spends N2trn in two years

The Federal Government, under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan, has spent at least N1.732trn on intervention funds in different sectors of the economy, SUNDAY PUNCH investigation has found.

The figure represents the sum of the amounts approved by the Federal Government as intervention funds between 2010, when Jonathan became President and December 2012.

Some of the intervention funds include the N200bn Small and Medium Guarantee Scheme, N200bn Restructuring and Refinancing Facility Scheme and the N300bn Power and Airline Intervention Fund.

Others are the N75bn Grooming Enterprise Leaders Business Intervention Fund, N32bn Entertainment Intervention Fund and N10.71bn Commercial Agriculture Credit Guarantee Scheme to six banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Also on the long list of intervention funds, are the N300bn approved for the hotel and leisure sub-sector in 2012; N200bn for indigenous pharmaceutical companies and N100bn textile industry bailout.

The Federal Government, between 2010 and 2012, also disbursed N126.1bn as export expansion grant.

Also in 2010, the Federal Government reportedly disbursed about N7.9bn to 25 companies from the National Automotive Fund. The money was for the production of vehicles, motorcycles and bicycle tyres and accessories.

An additional N3bn was earmarked for disbursement to nine companies before the end of that year.

In July 2012, the Federal Government approved N330m grants to assist 20,000 farmers in Lagos state.

Similarly, in November, 2012, the Federal Government, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria, disbursed a soft loan worth N9.4m to members of the Nigeria Cassava Growers Association, Nasarawa State chapter.

As at July 2011, the Bank of Industry had reportedly disbursed N195bn out of the N200bn meant for the refinancing of the manufacturing sector to 518 companies across the six geo-political zones, while N83bn out of the N300bn for the power and aviation sectors had also been disbursed to companies in these sectors.

As part of Federal Government’s intervention in education in 2012, it approved N95.653bn for public tertiary institutions in the country, through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.

Within the period under review, the Federal Government disbursed several funds through the Universal Basic Education Commission. One of such was N94m disbursed to 125 communities in Bayelsa State, in September, 2011, for self-help projects.

In the agricultural sector, the CBN, through its Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, approved a take-off grant of N75bn to boost agriculture businesses.

The Head, Project Implementation of NIRSAL, CBN, Mr. Jude Uzonwanne, reportedly said N45bn from the N75bn had been set aside as loans to the farmers, while the balance would be used to train and insure them.

Irked by the situation in which government’s interventions have had little or no impact on the economy, the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, conducted a survey and found that only six per cent of industrialists accessed the funds.

NACCIMA said this at the presentation of the survey report to stakeholders in July 2012.

NACCIMA President, Dr. Ademola Ajayi, said the intervention funds were faced with the problem of accessibility.

According to Ajayi, despite the Federal Government’s N100bn textile bailout fund, less than 25 per cent of textile manufacturers were operating above 50 per cent capacity utilisation.

PUNCH Newspaper