The BOA team led by the Branch manager Mr. Femurewa informed the commissioner about the numerous programs done by the Bank. He told the commissioner that N100million was made available for disbursement to farmers in Ekiti State, and N52.1million out of the available fund have so far been disbursed to farmers. He told the commissioner that efforts are on to disburse the N47.9million remaining fund to the farmers.
The Branch manager informed the Commissioner that another fund is domiciled in Kaduna, the headquarters of the bank waiting for approval before disbursement.
He highlighted some of the challenges the bank is facing; some on the part of the bank, while some are on the part of the Beneficiaries. The problems include non-repayment of the loan, shortage of manpower, and late approval and disbursement of the loan to the farmers.
He also hinted the commissioner that the Bank is working on how to open more branches in State.
The MD equally used the opportunity to intimate the commissioner about youth and women empowerment programs in form of Public Private partnership programs that the state could key-in to. Some of the programs are Youth in Agriculture Revolution (YARN) which takes care of youth between 18 and 35years old, and Grow and Earn More (GEM) program for women alone and has no age limit.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Engr Abegunde while reacting to the remarks of the Bank's management observed that the Bank does not have adequate manpower to effectively handle farmers' plights on time. He said the Work of the bank is at very slow pace, and advised that Innovative mechanism for which the program could be done properly to improve the face of the program should be devised.
He said the best way to combat that is for the bank and the ministry to combine human resource, and share the results.
He later asked for the omnibus data of those that have benefited in the programme so far.
The commissioner in his response charged the management of the bank to intensify efforts to make sure that the loan is disbursed to the farmers on time, noting that an action delayed is an action denied.
He thanked them for the services rendered so far, and urged them to hasting the disbursement of the fund because agriculture practices are time bound.
"I am not saying you should compromise your standard, but our people are complaining about delay in the disbursement of the fund.
"This is Agric loan, there will be problem if you don't disburse it on time.
"The bank should release its own share of 50m of the 100m loan, the state will pay its own share of 50m as soon as the fund is available.
"The little resources the state has now goes to the payment of workers salaries, and this administration does not intend to compromise payment of workers' salary.
"Govt does not have money for now, a situation where the revenue is less than N2Billion and salary is N2.6b is not helping the matter." Odebunmi said.
He promised that the govt will support the program as soon as the financial situation of the state improves
He advised that the bank should go ahead with the program with their own N50m loan to help the farmers that the state will do its part as soon as the situation improves
He later promised to talk to His Excellency on the request made by the management of the bank to have a meet with the governor.
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