TheCable

The federal government says it has disbursed N1.62 billion to 5,200 beneficiaries under its Nigeria youth investment fund (NYIF).

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) had approved N75 billion for the establishment of the NYIF, an initiative of the ministry of youths and sports, with the aim to financially empower youths between 2020 to 2023.

The sport ministry in a statement, on Sunday, said the data was released by the NIRSAL Micro Finance Bank (NMFB).

The ministry also said the microfinance bank is preparing to disburse loans to another batch of 25,000 youths once their applications are approved.

It said some applicants were not qualified for loan disbursement because they did not provide valid or correct contact details for communication on further steps in the loan application.

The ministry explained that some applicants were not selected because they had an existing agri-business/small and medium enterprise investment scheme (AGSMEIS) or COVID-19 loan; and were older than 35 years old, which puts them beyond the age bracket for youth.

It added that other reasons are that the applicant has a poor credit rating or currently has a non-performing loan, and they failed to provide a valid bank verification number (BVN) as well as incomplete or incorrect BVN.

“Total eligible applications approved stood at 6,054 out of which the 5,200 disbursements were made, leaving the number of those that have been approved but yet to get disbursement at 854. The number of unqualified applicants for the batch stood at 721,” the statement reads.

“Another batch of 25,000 have been qualified for training ahead of final clearance for disbursement.

“Only N3 billion has been provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) out of N12.5 billion approved for the first tranche of the NYIF. So far, 54.6% of the N3 billion has been disbursed.”

The apex bank, at its monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting in May, said a total of N2.04 billion had been disbursed to 7,075 beneficiaries under the NYIF.