CBN to verify beneficiaries of Agriculture Anchor Programme in Delta

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday said that its agriculture anchored programme has put modalities in place to verify benefiting farmers and to ensure total elimination of political farmers in Delta State.

The representative of the Apex Bank, Mr. Matthew Badaiki, Assistant Director, Development Finance Office, Asaba, stated this in an interview with journalists following a meeting with farmers in Asaba.

He said that the programme would soon start yielding results and urged all prospective beneficiaries to open an account with the Bank of Industry (BOI) and obtain their Bank Verification Number (BVN).

“We have just finished with the first verification exercise being conducted by the CBN, Bank of Agriculture and Delta Ministry of Agriculture.

“After this, we will ask the farmers to come for their loan form and from then, we shall have a one on one  verification and monitor each project to know who are real farmers, the absentee and the political
farmers”, Badaiki said.

Badaiki reassured those farmers who still doubted the process to learn to have the “spirit of I can”, adding that the Federal Government was resolute and committed to the programme.

“We are expecting bumper harvest from the farmers, so that we can stop the importation of rice and other food items and save our foreign exchange.

“The programme will work, the farmers have to have the spirit of I can, everything is in place and if it did not work, the farmers should be held responsible.

“So far, we have verified over 30,000 farmers, but many of them are not co-operating with us in the area of BVN.

“Some of them are scared, but BVN does not hunt anyone but will help us to know who are the real farmers, those who have taken loan before and owing another bank, so that we can move forward,” he said.

He said that the fifth batch of beneficiaries were already submitted for  processing in the state, adding that more names and account numbers were being expected for processing and full take off in the
state.

He assured the farmers that the programmer was not partisan and advised   that they should follow the set rules and regulations to key into the programme and get empowered.

Chief Austin Chikezie, Delta State Commissioner for Agriculture lauded the programme and assured that farmers in the state would make good use of the opportunity.

He said that the state had comparative advantage in cassava, rice, palm oil and fisheries, adding that the period of implementing the programme in the state was not a challenge.

According to him, the programme is continuous and farmers would leverage on the opportunity to invest on those items that will thrive in this season of the year.