The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has decried the low participation of the people of the South East in its economic intervention policies and programmes.
The Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department of the bank, Mr Osita. Nwanisiobi, disclosed this on Tuesday during the CBN Fair in Enugu.
Nwanisiobi said that the CBN intervention programmes were meant to create jobs, engender financial inclusion and to make the people have access to finance.
He said that at a time when inflation was spiking and prices of food items souring, Nigerians needed to leverage on the intervention programmes of the apex bank for better living.
According to him, the aims of the CBN intervention in the real economy are to create jobs, bring down food prices, financially include the excluded and engender inclusive growth.
“This CBN Fair enables us to create awareness of all the policies and interventions of the bank and to talk to our people on how they can leverage on the programmes.
“We noticed that there seems to be a lethargy in terms of people from the zone embracing the CBN interventions.
“There is also the need for the state governments to leverage on the Anchors Borrowers Programme to improve the lives of the people,” he said.
Nwanisiobi said that the apex bank in its bid to engender inclusiveness started its Commodity Development Initiative with 10 commodities “but now we are at about 22 commodities.”
“In choosing the commodities we intervene in, we look at the possible impacts and those that will help us to create quick wins.
“We also intervene in areas where we have comparative advantage and not just for local production but for export also,” he said.
He said that the CBN governor was very passionate about the 37 interventions of the apex bank, adding that the South-East can do much better in assessing them.
In a goodwill message, the Enugu State Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Martins Idu appealed to the CBN to domesticate some of its intervention programmes to enable more people to participate.
Idu said that most of the programmes did not have the value chains needed in the state.
The commissioner appealed to the apex bank to include honey production and piggery as some of the items under its Commodity Development Initiative.
He said that the state had no fewer than 2000 farmers that were into piggery, adding that such people needed to be supported.
The event which will feature lectures on the programmes and policies of the apex bank will last for two days .
