By Haruna Salami
The Senate on Monday resolved to write, for the umpteenth time, Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing
System for Agricultural Lending (NAIRSAL) Management and it Micro Finance Bank to appear before its
Ad-hoc Committee on Uneven disbursement of loans/grants/interventions by Nigerian development
banks on Thursday, December 5, 2022 or face the wrath of the upper chamber.
The Committee also mandated the management of NIRSAL Micro Finance Bank to come and face the
committee over allegation of uneven disbursement of loans, grants, interventions among others.
The chairman of the committee, Senator Sani Musa (Niger East) gave the ultimatum when the Minister
of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Ambassador Mariam Katagum appeared before the
Committee.
Irked by absence of NIRSAL following repeated invitation, Musa said whether the Managing Director is
there or not the management of the agency must appear before the committee on Thursday.
Corroborating the position of the chairman, Senator Matthew Urhoghide (Edo South) said “if we are to
really apportion seriousness to the job we have to do by this committee, it is important for us to be
reminded that all the interventions done by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); go and check, agriculture
is the area where huge sums of money has been given out to support development.
“All the actions that were done were mediated through NIRSAL that stood in as guarantor for the loans
that were given out. It will be totally out of place if. NIRSAL is not mad to come here. Talk of the
interventions and the distribution that was done in course of trying to elicit development, the area of
agriculture has been very vital.
“If you are conversant with what is happening in NIRSAL, and even in Public Accounts Committee, we
are equally very worried about operations in NIRSAL. I think wha6we are doing here will really expose
their activities the more. It will not be surprising if the former MD is on suspension certainly due to
infractions committed. It is the impact of what we are looking for. We can say without any fear that
there is a whole lot of inequity in the distribution of concessionary loans that were given to Nigeria. So,
they have to come”.
Meanwhile, Senator Ayo Akinyelure (Ondo Central) tasked the Minister of State on the disbursement of
survival funds, saying people who applied for a grant of N3.2million for small scale enterprises, however
ended up with three hundred thousand naira and two hundred of fifty naira for Ondo and Oyo states
respectively.
“We were told at the point of disbursement the state government changed the name of the programme
from NCares to Ondo cares and Oyo cares.
“We were told the state government hijacked and reduced the amount to N300,000 and 250,000 for
Ondo and Oyo respectively and reduced the number of beneficiaries” Akinyelure said.
Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Senator Sani Musa (Niger East) put the decision of the committee
thus: “Based on all the contributions from my colleagues, I will make it like a duty on us as an Ad-hoc
Committee to write again finally NIRSAL Plc and to write freshly to NIRSAL Micro Finance Bank to appear
before this committee on Thursday at 11 am. Failure for them to do so, we will not hesitate to invoke all
the constitutional means through the leadership of the Senate to make sure these people do the
needful. They must be accountable to Nigerians”.
