BOI Boosts Businesses in S'West with N18bn Facility

BOI Managing Director/Chief Excutive Officer, Rasheed Olaoluwa

Ademola Babalola in Ibadan‎

As part of its commitment to boost small and medium scale businesses in Nigeria and position the country for economic boom in the comity of other nations, the Bank of Industry (BOI) said it had provided loans in excess of N18 billion to industrialise the South-west geopolitical zone of the country.

The amount, according to the BOI Managing Director/Chief Excutive Officer, Rasheed Olaoluwa, covered states like Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states while Lagos state was also specially taken care of in the bank's industrialisation efforts at growing entrepreneurship ventures across the 36 states of the federation.

The BOI chief executive stated this yesterday in Ibadan, at the inauguration of the West Regional and Oyo state offices of the BOI at Ibadan.

Of the N18 billion, Olaoluwa disclosed that over 80 firms and micro enterprises spread across Oyo State as at March this year has been given over N10 billion.

Justifying the huge investment in Oyo, Olaoluwa said: “Oyo State is very crucial to BOI’s strategy of ensuring that our development finance services are brought closer to the people of the State especially in our bid to vastly improve our service delivery efficiency, while also reaching out to all parts of the entire South West Region.”

According to him, Oyo State Government had also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BOI in 2012, which culminated in the establishment of the OYSG/BOI Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Matching Fund Scheme to the tune of N1biillion.

“To date, the bank has recorded a total loan approval of N375 million in respect of 68 enterprises.  Of this amount, a total of N225 million had been disbursed to 35 enterprises.  Additional disbursements to 17 other enterprises in the sum of N104 million is currently being processed while some of the new beneficiaries are being presented with their cheques at the BOI’s South West Customer Forum later in the day (yesterday),” the managing director stated.

Also addressing the forum, Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, who was represented by his Deputy, Mr. Moses Alake Adeyemo opined that the new BOI’s Regional and State Offices would deepen the bank’s developmental impact in the five states comprising Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Kwara States that it is out to serve.
Ajimobi noted that no nation could ever prosper without putting the natural resources at its disposal into effective use through secondary production.