The delay in disbursement of the N220 billion Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) fund has been blamed on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s failure the release money for on-lending to operators in the sub-sector. This came to fore yesterday at the training workshop organized by Enpretech Nigeria Foundation in collaboration with Fidelity Bank and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in Abuja.
A trainee and customer of the Fidelity Bank had complained that after meeting all requirements over a year ago, his firm had not received the loan and was already considering taking a decision on its relationship with the bank. However, in his response, the Group Head, Specialized SME Unit of Fidelity Bank, Mr Ndubuisi Onuoha blamed the CBN for the delay in disbursement and appealed to the bank’s customer to exercise more patience as Deposit Money Bank can only on-lend the funds when given to them by the CBN. He said, “Fidelity bank has done over N3 billion disbursements, CBN is slowing things down, there is close to N2 billion pending with the CBN, we are doing everything to get the funds for SMEs the problem is not with Fidelity bank, we are only a conduit for passing the money to SMEs.”
But CBN spokesman, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor dismissed the claim, as according to him, many loan applicants fail to meet the requirements for such loans. “The common thing is that people present themselves for loans with no real intention of going into business or evidence that they have put in their own money. Or still that they may not possess the capacity to even run such a business,” he said. He added that the SME fund has been designed for loan facilities which must be repaid by customers who received them. Mr. Onuoha said in his earlier presentation that his bank was “committed to building sustainable small enterprises” stressing that “only 50% survive beyond three years because of lack of capacity and funds which pose major challenges. It doesn’t matter how much money they have, without capacity it will be lost.” “Some funds kill SMEs prematurely, they (SMEs) need to understand their type of business. We have alliances with technical partners to ensure this SMEs have acquired requisite skills and talents to manage their businesses.”
He said that had dedicated had contacts with foundations and other organization both local and foreign that were ready to give out loans to SMEs and that the organization would gladly train interested members in the public on how to run SMEs profitably. The official said that based on a series of studies carried out on the sub-sector, capacity building , rather than financing remained the greatest challenge of most SMEs operators. The sources of funding of SMEs by Fidelity is “limitlessly, because we have product papers once you have packaged yourself, well funding will not be an issue.” The General Manager Business and Strategy of Enpretech Mr. Bright Osakwe described the programme as an initiative of the UNCTAD in order to spread capacity in SMEs across the globe. Mr. Osakwe who stood in for Mrs. Onari Duke, the Country Representative of the Enpretech Nigeria Foundation said that his organization had trained over 3, 000 young Nigerians on SMEs and would do more. According to him, the on-going workshop in Abuja, was the third as the foundation had earlier held similar trainings in Calabar and Lagos.
Source: Vanguard
