From Desmond Mgboh, Kano
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has identified poor user awareness as a major challenge to the realisation of the goals of some of its strategic intervention programmes designed to boost the economy.
Acting Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Alhaji Yusuf Wali, disclosed this Thursday in Kano at a bank-wide sensitisation campaign organised to educate the public on CBN’s initiatives and programmes.
He explained that following the low awareness of the beneficiaries of these strategic and intervention programmes, the apex bank deemed it expedient to sensitise the public on these interventions.
These interventions, he announced, spanned across different segments of the economy such as agriculture, power and energy, manufacturing, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and the banking sector. He explained that these initiatives were structured on the premise that concerted efforts were needed to deepen credit delivery to the real sector of the economy.
“These schemes and programmes for the real sector development have inherent potential for employment generation, wealth creation, infrastructure development and modernisation of the economy,” he stated.
He used the occasion to enjoin Nigerians to desist from unwholesome financial engagements in all ponzi schemes, saying that recently the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum announced that subscribers had lost a whopping sum of N11.9 billion to these frauds as at December 2016.
Kano State Commissioner for Finance, Prof. Kabiru Dandogo, tasked the participants at the event to be envoys of the apex bank by sensitising the public on these interventions and their benefits.
He recalled that the CBN had been giving out assistance to the public, while urging the people of the state to organise themselves in order to access these interventions.