President Goodluck Jonathan has set in motion a process for the recapitalization and restructuring of the bank of Agriculture, which has been moribund for quite a while and had been unable to discharge its statutory functions.<\/p>\n
This is against the backdrop of previous interventions of government in other sectors like the textile industry which did not yield expected results.<\/p>\n
The Senior Special Assistant (SSA) Public Affairs to the President , Dr Doyin Okupe who made this disclosure in Abuja Friday, said \u201cPresident Goodluck Jonathan is taking this personal because of his overwhelming interest in the agriculture sector , and the need to boost food production and other source of income for the nation, diversifying our revenue base outside a mono-product (crude oil) economy\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Okupe, President Jonathan\u00a0 has mandated\u00a0 the coordinating\u00a0 minister of the economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala to bring\u00a0 together stake holders so as to ensure that \u201dthrough the restructuring and recapitalization of the bank,it will be possible for small scale farmers to directly access the loans with minimal bureaucracy \u201d.<\/p>\n
The SSA also disclosed that the government would ensure an interest rate not exceeding 6 percent, is put in place, to serve as an extra incentive.<\/p>\n
Okupe said further \u201cthe president is concerned and has directed that provisions\u00a0 be made\u00a0 for a moratorium period for repayment between two and three years for those farmers engaged\u00a0 in the production of cash crops like cocoa, rubber, palm kernel, gum Arabic etc.\u201d<\/p>\n
Okupe maintained that this is a bold initiative of the administration and underscores the measures of seriousness the administration is paying to agriculture, and it is part of this transformation agenda, and an alternative source of income and drive up the gross domestic product (GDP).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Goodluck Jonathan has set in motion a process for the recapitalization and restructuring of the bank of Agriculture, which has been moribund for quite a while and had been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n