A former Registrar of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Uju Ogubunka has said that the Microfinance Banks in Nigeria should be rated higher than they are based on the ‘Micro Finance Policy, Regulatory and Supervisory Framework for Nigeria’ issued by the CBN in 2005, stressing “that MFBs stand shoulder higher among all the other types of banks/other financial institutions to be given the opportunity to handle financial services/affairs of poor people especially, at the rural areas of the country.”
Similarly, the President of the National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS), Dr. Ken Ukaoha, said the saga demonstrated the existence of deep-rooted corruption in the public service that should be frontally tackled by the present administration in order to alleviate the prevalent multidimensional poverty in the country.
Specifically, Ukaoha, who is also a legal expert and smallholder farmers’ capacity building proponent, pointed out that channeling social intervention funds through the MFBs will ensure transparency and accountability in the disbursements “as these MFBs are guided by monetary principles in all areas of their operations”.
In his remarks, Director-General/CEO, Association of Nigerian Exporters (ANE), Prince Joseph Idiong, harped on the need for the use of MFBs as preferred final channel for disbursement of poverty alleviation funds, saying that this is desirable “when considering their reach to most local areas, though there are still some Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country that do not have MFBs or Deposit Money Banks (DMBs).”
Commenting, a former National Chairman of Association of Small-Scale Agro-Producers in Nigeria (ASSAPIN), Hajia Amina Jubrin, said: “The MFBs are best positioned to efficiently disburse these funds in order to achieve the objectives.”