The Central Bank of Nigeria has disbursed a total of N23.2bn to 28 firms whose projects satisfied the apex bank’s criteria for ‘100 for 100 Policy for Production and Productivity.’

It disclosed that this was after 243 firms submitted applications with projects valued at N321.06bn for the 100 by 100 loan scheme.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this in Abuja on Monday while presenting the cheques to the beneficiary companies through seven participating financial institutions.

The companies comprise 14 manufacturing firms, 12 agricultural companies, and two healthcare firms

The PPP is CBN’s policy initiative unveiled last year at the launch of the E-naira initiative to accelerate manufacturing output, and promote further diversification of the nation’s economy to enable faster growth of non-oil exports.

Under the policy, eligible companies in priority sectors are to be screened and 100 companies will be selected to receive funding from the CBN every 100 days, beginning from November 1 2021.

The selection of subsequent beneficiaries will be rolled over every 100 days with new sets of 100 companies.

He said, “For this first cycle of the initiative ending today, 243 applications valued at N321.06bn, spread over key sectors such as agriculture, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and services sectors were submitted on the portal.

“After much engagement, 79 applications were received from banks, valued at N121.87bn, for projects in six sectors, namely agriculture, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, mining, and services sectors.

“The requests were carefully screened and scrutinised against set-out selection criteria, which is categorised into production efficiency and scalability; local content capacity; job creation and human capital development; operating sector relevance; and potential contribution to economic growth.

While appealing to the beneficiaries to note that the facility is not a grant but a repayable loan, he said the next cycle for submission of applications for the 100 for 100 PPP on February 1, 2022, and will end on April 30, 2022.” (The PUNCH)

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