Beneficiaries of the Federal Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) have complained of the shoddy manner in which the programme is being implemented in Rivers state.
The Federal Government had initiated the programme which is also known as ‘market moni’ in accordance with the provisions of 2017-2020 Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, which seeks to sustain economic growth and stabilize domestic production through increased funding of SMEs. The federal government through the Bank of Industry has been disbursing the funds,which is administered by a commercial bank.
One of the beneficiaries who gave his name as Gabriel (surname withheld) told Global Patriot Newspapers, GPN, in Port Harcourt that he was enrolled as a beneficiary by a cooperative on payment of two thousand five hundred naira (N2,500).
He said a Sterling bank account ‘Kaikai’ was opened for all the beneficiaries.
He further said the Sterling Bank, which is administering the zero interest loan facility, invited him to come but informed him that the expected one hundred thousand naira (N100,000) had been reduced to fifty thousand naira(N50,000) and that if that was okay by him, he should come to the branch to pick up the money.
On arrival at the bank, he was directed to fill forty-eight thousand naira (N48,000) instead of fifty thousand naira (N50,000). The two thousand naira (N2,000) deduction, according to the bank official, is the bank charges. He was also directed to leave behind four thousand four hundred naira (N4,400), which should be paid into the account of an unknown agent.
He said at the end of it all, he collected forty-three thousand, six hundred naira (N43,600) only.
“I applied for N100,000. After a while, they sent me a text message that it has been reduced to N50,000. Then, they sent a code, which if you are okay by the N50,000, you send it back to them. Then, they will accept you and after 21 days, they will credit your account. Before the 21 days, they sent me a message which I went there and they disbursed the money in cash to me. When I went to the bank, Sterling Bank, Aba road branch in Port Harcourt, I introduced myself to them, then they gave me a form to fill. After filling the form, they said I should fill N48,000. I asked why N48,000? They said that the N2,000 deduction is for the bank. After filling N48,000, they said that I have to leave N4,400 again, which I asked what for? They said that it is for the installment payment and there was account number they gave me to pay in that money. The account name is Ibekwe. According to the man who gave me the name, said he interbank with Sterling bank and this very loan we are collecting. But, during our registration,our facilitator had told us we will start making the installment payment after 3 weeks of receipt of the loan. We were also told that the first stage is N100,000, which will be repaid in six months. When you pay to satisfaction, you go to the next stage of N250,000. From there to N500,000. Then to the last stage of N1million”, he said.
The beneficiary therefore called on the federal government to explain these processes to the applicants and beneficiaries to enable them decide whether to obtain the loan or not.
He feared that a situation might arise where other intricacies might crop up in the process of redeeming the loan thereby amounting to biting more than one can chew.
He said already the reduction in the amount of money received has affected his business plan and therefore said there was need to clarify the situation to the applicants.
“Although the money is not enough, I just feel since I have applied for it, it can buy one or two things to add to my business,” he said.
When GPN contacted Sterling Bank, Aba road branch, an official, who said she would prefer not to have her name in print, stated that the bank has not deducted any money from any beneficiary and is not contemplating doing so.
She explained;” The first thing is the Bank of Industry (BOI) by the federal government. Then, Sterling bank and any other commercial bank will come in. Because BOI is not liquid, there will be a bank that will access the funds to the beneficiaries. As a matter of fact, the bank has little or nothing to do with them at all. We don’t have anything to do with them. What we are doing is just to disburse the money to them. Before they come, they will go through their agent. They have an agent who introduced them to the system. We don’t know how they started it. We don’t know the payment they are giving to the agent. All we are interested in is you come to the bank, you fill your withdrawal slip, whatever we see there we give it to you. The bank is not aware of any N4, 400 or N2, 000 or whatever payment they are making. What we are doing as a bank is just to disburse the fund to them through an application to link the Bank of Industry. It’s not us. The account number is not on the conventional software we have. They have a software called, ‘Bank 1’, which is linked to the Bank of Industry. The N4, 400, N2, 000, the code, whatever, we are not in charge. We pay them according to what they have. If they have that account number 9 something; something, they will fill their withdrawal slip. We look at it. If you fill N100, 000 and we were able to access your account and we see that it is N40, 000 that is there, that is what we pay you. We can’t pay you what is not there and we give it to you. We just do our own due diligence as a bank. We don’t even give their money to their agent because we are not seeing their agent. It is a savings account. We can’t give it to a third party. So, what we do is just to give them based on what we see. We are not aware of the N4, 400, N2, 000, code. No staff of Sterling bank bears Ibekwe. He is not a staff of Sterling bank. Ibekwe is an agent who started and ended his transaction with the Bank of Industry. What we are doing is to pay whoever we see physically based on what we can access in the account to the last kobo. Whatever deduction is being made is not Sterling bank. We are not part of it. We are not aware. We just pay based on the balance we have in the system.”
