Aba (Abia) – The Abia chapter of the Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI) has urged the Federal Government to establish another intervention agency rather than merge NERFUND with the Bank of Industry (BoI).
Its Director-General, Mr Imo Anasonye, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Aba, Abia on Thursday that merging NERFUND with BoI would make it hard for small scale industries to access funds.
“There should be another intervention agency on its own created with the same purpose like NERFUND that can manage funds disbursement to and recovery from small and medium industrialists.
“Merging NERFUND with BoI will not help the small scale industrialists. An agency should be there to process and manage the disbursement and recovery process so that when we pass through the agency, it will go to BoI to get the funds for us,” he said.
The director general said that leaving the work to BoI alone would bug down the system and defeat the purpose because it would be cumbersome for the bank to handle the SMEs with their large population.
Anasonye said that the new agency would ensure that funds created to grow small and medium industries were meaningfully managed and recycled for effectiveness.
He said that creating intervention agencies without making them actualise their purpose was counter-productive, hence the numerous challenges the SMEs faced.
He suggested that the “structural defects” which caused NERFUND to be shut down should be corrected to make the new agency more accountable to achieve its goals.
The Federal Government on June 16 issued a circular directing the immediate closure of the National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND) and later said it had begun the process of merging it with the BoI. (NAN)
