The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs(MNDA) is soliciting for collaboration with the Nigerian Incentive-based Risk Sharing system for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) to foster socio-economic development in the Niger Delta region.
The Minister of State, Sharon Ikeazor made this known in a statement made available by the ministry’s Director, Press and Public Relations, Deworitshe Patricia on Sunday.
Ikeazor in an interactive session with the Managing Director NIRSAL, Aliyu Abdulhameed in his office recently in Abuja said,”I initiated the idea based on the mandate of the Ministry which is to coordinate all programmes, polices, initiatives and interventions of the Federal Government in the Niger Delta region”
The minister expressed optimism that the prospective collaboration between the two MDA’s will bring financial relief and empowerment to the people of Niger Delta in the area of Agricultural businesses.
She requested that both Agencies form a technical team to pore through the possibilities in the partnership and map out an action plan that would be rolled out soon stating that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is expected to be signed before the end of October.
While making his presentations during the meeting, Aliyu outlined capacity building, finance facilitation, project monitoring and market linkage as some of the possible areas of partnership with the Ministry that would impact positively on the fortunes of the citizens of the Niger Delta region.
He reiterated that NIRSAL as an initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Bankers Committee (BC) and Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMA&RD) is designed with the scope of ensuring the existence of affordable financing schemes to all players along the agricultural value chain in Nigeria.
He further explained that some of the functions of NIRSAL Plc which includes Catalyzing the flow of finance and investments into fixed agricultural value chain across Nigeria and gears towards empowering the people economically is in line with the mandate of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs hence an effective collaboration would be maintained to achieve the intention of both establishments.
