Reps grill BOI over unrecovered grants

The House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee has questioned the Bank of Industry over the unrecovered micro, small and medium enterprises offtake grants from 19,538 Nigerians to address the COVID-19 health pandemic.

On Tuesday in Abuja, at the resumed hearing on the ongoing probe of the alleged mismanagement of the COVID-19 intervention funds by the Ministries’ Departments and Agencies, the committee directed the management of the bank to provide it with relevant documents on all the disbursements.

The bank’s Managing Director, Mr Olasupo Olusi, was represented by the Executive Director of Small and Medium Enterprises, Mr Omar Shekarau, who appeared before the committee and was quizzed over the COVID-19 fund managed by the bank on behalf of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the National Export Promotion Council.

According to Omar, the bank received N75 billion on behalf of the Ministry of Trade and Industry

He said, “Beneficiaries were under the five tracks of implementation, which included payroll support track totalling N47,59bn, General MSME grants totalling N4,12bn artisan and transport track totalling N11.95bn, MSME offtake totalling N2.34bn and Corporate Affairs Commission formalisation support track totalling N1.49bn

“Bank of Industry received 12 per cent of the N75 billion, totalling N9 billion, as a running cost for the project.

“Under the Guaranteed Offtake Scheme, 19,538 beneficiaries failed to deliver their items after receiving the 30 per cent mobilisation fee, thereby breaching the contract with the Federal Government.”

He added that those who benefited from the intervention programmes were artisans, transporters, small business owners, and private and public school staff.

Reacting to the committee’s question on the mechanism put in place to recover the MSME offtake, the Executive Director said the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency is in charge of recovering the loan.

Following the refusal of the bank to speak to its document, the committee unanimously resolved that the agency should submit relevant documents on all the disbursements without further delay.