409.2 million Naira was disbursed to 1,774 beneficiaries by UMUCHINEMERE Pro- credit Micro Finance Bank (UPMFB), Enugu.The bank disclosed this over the weekend for her first half of the year.
The statement signed by Head, Public/Media Relations, UPMFB, Sir Abuchi Anueyiagu, revealed that a total of N182, 730, 000 was disbursed to a total of 553 beneficiaries with 314 male beneficiaries receiving N91,510,000 and 239 females receiving N91,220,000 between 2014 when the fund was launched and the first quarter of 2015.
Head of Credit, UPMFB, Mr. Charles Udeani, said that the Central Bank of Nigeria had good intentions in providing the fund to empower Nigerians and rid the country of poverty but advised that such fund should be well structured to ensure prompt repayment. The fund is to help the beneficiaries to establish and grow their businesses, some many people have believed that the fund was a national cake, not meant to be repaid, leading to the difficulty in recovery of the fund, as some beneficiaries are reluctant to repay.
since 2014 when the fund was introduced, some functionaries who are not in business used their influence to accessing the fund and refused to repay, resulting to a large number of scale delinquency witnessed in the performance of the fund and impeding the achievement of the objectives for establishing the fund.
The delinquency in the performance of the fund adversely affected the realization of the poverty reduction objective and the revolving policy of the fund. This is injurious to the economic health and growth of the country because, the loan which had one year tenure was meant to encourage entrepreneurship and reduce poverty in the country,