PPP: How CBN opened N294bn window to private firms to boost productivity

The 100 for 100 Policy on Production and Productivity (PPP) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) launched late last year was not just a pronouncement but has come to stay with the injection of about N300 billion and more into the economy, directly benefited by 224 firms as of January ending.

According to a communique of the 140th Monetary Policy Committee meeting of January, the PPP initiative was introduced to stimulate the flow of finance and investments to enterprises and projects with the potential to kick-start a sustainable economic growth trajectory, accelerate structural transformation, promote diversification, and improve productivity.

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As of January, ending shortly before the fund disbursement, the apex bank said received 224 applications, valued at N294.91 billion for real sector projects in agriculture, energy, healthcare, manufacturing and services.

The applications were processed and the first batch of beneficiaries under the intervention were announced on 31st January 2022, with their names published in national dailies.

“These projects have been carefully selected in line with the approved selection criteria as contained in the guidelines,” said Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of CBN in the communique published by the bank on Friday.

But this is not just the only financial and investment promotion interventions done by the apex bank. The MPC had a broad-spectrum review of the performance of the bank’s intervention programmes. These interventions were aimed at stimulating productivity in manufacturing/industries,
agriculture, energy/infrastructure, healthcare and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

This paper highlights a few of these as of December 2021 just as more have been done since January 2022, including the 294bn funding for the PPP scheme.

Under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), the Bank disbursed N75.99 billion to support the cultivation of over 383,000 hectares of maize, rice and wheat during the 2022 dry season, bringing the cumulative disbursements under the Programme to N927.94 billion to over 4.5 million smallholder farmers cultivating 21 commodities across the country. All excess output aggregated from the financed farmers will be released to the Nigeria Commodity Exchange (NCX) to help moderate the prices of food in the market. The Bank also released N1.76 billion to finance two (2) large-scale agricultural projects under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS).

In addition, the Bank disbursed the sum of N151.23 billion under the Real Sector Facility to 15 additional projects in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and services. The funds were utilized for both greenfield and brownfield (expansion) projects under the Covid-19 Intervention for the Manufacturing Sector (CIMS) and the Real Sector Support Facility from Differentiated Cash Reserve Requirement (RSSF-DCRR). Cumulative disbursements under the Real Sector Facility currently stood at N1.40 trillion disbursed to 331 projects across the country.

As part of its effort to support the resilience of the healthcare sector, the Bank also disbursed N498.00 million to two healthcare projects under the Healthcare Sector Intervention Facility (HSIF), bringing the cumulative disbursements to N108.85 billion for 118 projects, comprising of 31 pharmaceuticals, 82 hospital and four other services.
To support households and businesses affected by Covid-19, the Bank disbursed N20.29 billion to 40,521 beneficiaries, comprising 35,340 households and 5,181 small businesses under the Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) within the period. The cumulative disbursements under the TCF stood at N369.78 billion to 777,666 beneficiaries, comprising 648,052 households and 129,614 small businesses. To further promote entrepreneurship development among Nigerian youths, the Bank disbursed N293 million to 59 beneficiaries under the recently introduced Tertiary Institutions Entrepreneurship Scheme (TIES).

The CBN intervention was also felt in the power sector too. Under the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP), the sum of N47.83 billion was disbursed for the procurement and installation of 858,026 electricity meters across the country under the Scheme’s Phase-0. The Committee also noted the improved collections by DisCos as a result of increased meter installations.

The Bank released N274.33 billion to power sector players, as part of its effort to support the sector under the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Payment Assurance Facility (NBET-PAF). This was in addition to the N20.58 billion released to Distribution Companies (DisCos) under the Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility – Phase 2 (NEMSF-2).

To further support the development of enabling infrastructure in the gas industry, the Bank released an additional N3 billion for the augmentation of an existing infrastructure, bringing the cumulative disbursements under the Intervention Facility for National Gas Expansion Programme (IFNGEP) to N42.20 billion for six projects.
Overall, the MPC held that this year, the economy will continue on a gradual rebound trajectory. Output growth recovery for the domestic economy has been relatively strong since 2021 after the world gradually began getting over the covid-19 pandemic. That is, however, expected to continue reasonably as this year progresses.