Farmers to Get 40% Shares in Bank of Agriculture After Commercialisation
Farmers are to own 40 percent shares in the Bank of Agriculture after commercialization by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).
This was disclosed by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh who said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is to own 10 percent, Ministry of Finance – 10 percent while the remaining 40 percent will go to institutional investors.
The Minister who spoke when he received members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture led by the Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, expressed dismay over the sum of N6.70 billion as overhead his Ministry suffered in both last and this year’s budget.
He said it was difficult for his Ministry to achieve 100 percent budget performance as a result of the late release of capital expenditure.
Ogbeh said “The focus today is 2017/2018 budget performance. In 2017, we have a total release of N48, 140, 990, 891 billion.
“On capital we had a total release of N185, 933, 273 million; Overhead on the personnel was N6, 704, 856, 830 billion.
“We had releases in three tranches in 2017 in first quarter, second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter as indicated because we inherited liabilities from GES in 2017, which was arriving from 2016, and the minister believed that that would impact negatively the ability to provide inputs for farmers to use a component which was budgeted in the budget to settle that liability.”
“Our performance for 2017 was practically 100 per cent of release. We had very serious issue with overhead as one of the largest ministries we have only N185 million for the whole year, which was just 40 per cent of what was proposed.
“We did pretty very well in 2017 but because the budget did not perform 100 per cent, and eagerness of the ministry, especially we have to address issues on import substation and value chain expansion and development, infrastructure development and other services, and then other agricultural projects.
“For 2018 the budget started to perform mid into the year. The first release was in September. Agriculture is seasonal and nobody can delay it. That impacted somehow negatively on our performance in 2017, and is till affecting our performance in 2018.
“We have received 52 per cent of our approved budget already this year, which is about N52 billion, and out of that we have already performed to the tune of 50 per cent.
“In 2018, we have so far received N21, 476, 313, 862 billion representing about 52 per cent.
“So far we have performed to the tune in percentage terms 54 per cent. There are lots of provisions in the Procurement Act that makes procurement delayed and we are happy the National Assembly is looking at and reviewing the Act.”
About Post Author
