Bauchi govt, BOI in N1bn small businesses loan pact

From Ahmad Mohammed, Bauchi

Bauchi State Government and the Bank of Industry, BOI have earmarked One Billion Naira to be distributed as soft loan to small scale industries under the Revolving Loan Scheme to boost business activities in the state.
State Commissioner Ministry of Poverty Small Scale and Cooperatives Society, Honourable Usman Mohammed Saleh disclosed this yesterday in Bauchi while answering questions from newsmen.
He said under the arrangement, the state government will provide N500m while the BOI will provide N500m.
Usman said the bank will take care of the money distributed and recover the loan while the state will screen and identify the benefitting cooperative society and small scale entrepreneurs that will benefit.
He said under digital economy, it is expected that every beneficiary will employ five people through this arrangement to enable government reduce the number of unemployed.
The commissioner lamented that the state government is paying over billion naira loan monthly that it didn’t take and government doesn’t know how the immediate past administration of the state utilised the money.
Usman said government will establish an industry for making groundnut oil and the customers will be charged a token for the maintenance of the facility.
He reiterated the commitment of the state government to create enabling environment for businesses in the state to thrive.
He solicited for the cooperation of the people of the state to enable them to benefit from the laudable programmes initiated by the government.