Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has said under the N100 billion Credit Support for the health sector, the bank has disbursed about 97.8bn to 95 projects which are green and brown field projects across the country.
Mr Emefiele made the disclosure during his remarks at the 2021 Annual General Conference (AGC) of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) in Lagos where he received the body’s award of excellence.
The award was swiftly followed by Vanguard Newspaper’s “2020 Public Sector Icon of the Year” in recognition of the performance of the governor in public service.
Represented by the Director, Corporate Affairs of CBN, Osita Nwanisobi, Emefiele further disclosed that the healthcare research and development scheme was designed to energise pharmacists to be able to research vaccines to tackle coronavirus and other communicable diseases.
He said, “We received 286 applications, we reviewed about 83 applications and 70 applications have been evaluated. Five have been approved, valued at N232m.
“These are part of the measures by the CBN to strengthen the health sector and the healthcare infrastructure.”
Also speaking at the event, the PSN President, Mazi Sam Ohabunwa, said the contribution of the pharmaceutical industry to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was still not satisfactory.
He said, “I want to acknowledge the CBN for a very great move to support the industry. The pandemic has now made us realise that the industry is as important as agric and other manufacturing industries.
“I believe that the support we have seen is the first phase. We acknowledge what they have done and we know they will do more.”
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