Nigeria: CBN Releases Fresh Guidelines For Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released fresh operational guideline for participants and operating institutions under its Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund which was established by the federal military government in 1977 and amended on 13th June 1988, and 26th June 2019.

The purpose of the Fund is to provide guarantee in respect of loans granted by lending banks for agricultural purposes under the scheme with the aim of increasing the level of bank credit to the agricultural sector. “Loan” under the amended act includes advances, overdrafts and any credit facility and should be taken as such wherever it is used in these guidelines and other circulars.

The guideline has been published on the website of the apex bank.

On the application process, the bank said all applications to lending banks for loans under the scheme will be made on the form prescribed for the purpose; individual account opened for each beneficiary under the scheme by the lending bank and accounts opened for purpose of lending under the scheme for co-operative or group loan.

All loans under the scheme must be insured as a condition precedent to guarantee.

The guideline posits that maximum liability of the fund in respect of any guarantee given under the scheme will be fixed from time to time by the ACGSF board.

The stated that single obligor limit for non-tangible collateral is N100,000 while the obligor limit for individual, group/co-operative or a corporate society is N50,000,000 for secured loans.

Based on the Act, the liability of the Fund will be 75 per cent of the amount in default net of any amount realized by the bank from the security it got from the borrower, subject, in the case of a loan to an individual, a co-operative society or a corporate body, to a maximum of N50,000,000.

Revised regulatory and supervisory guidelines of MFBs must be strictly adhered to as it stipulates that the maximum principal amount for a microloan shall not exceed N500,000.00 or 1% of the shareholders’ fund unimpaired by losses and or as may be reviewed from time to time by the CBN. This must apply in guaranteeing their facilities.

Where two or more banks jointly finance a project, the above limit of the Fund’s guarantee liability will apply to the total loan granted to the borrower (s) by all the banks.

While emphasising that the current National Housing Programme is a pilot or demonstration scheme meant, among others, to galvanize private sector participation, Mr Fashola explained further saying “We applied for land from the states and we set out to do a demonstration or a pilot programme because we then wanted to validate what we saw and build a pilot scheme”