COVID-19 Intervention Fund: N600 billion awaiting disbursement- CBN Governor

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that N600 billion out of the N1 trillion COVID-19 intervention fund for manufacturers is still in the process of being disbursed.
Disclosing this during the weekend, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said that N400 billion has already been disbursed to beneficiaries.
He made the remark at contract signing for localisation of manufacturing of Oral B products by P&G in Nigeria, in Lagos
Acccording to him,  the N400 billion was disbursed to 76 manufacturers.
The CBN Governor noted that the fund has boosted activities in the manufacturing sector, which has began to thrive.
He stated that the manufacturing industry has been a central focus of the efforts by the monetary and fiscal agecues towards driving recovery of the Nigerian economy,
“At the Central Bank of Nigeria, we set up a N1 trillion facility in April 2020 for the growth and expansion of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. So far close to N400 billion has been disbursed to 76 manufacturing firms, which would boost local manufacturing across critical sectors over the next few years,” he said.
“While growth remains fragile, driving further growth of the economy would require that we continue to support more investments that will enable the growth of the manufacturing sector in Nigeria,” he said.
According to Emefiele, given Nigeria’s market size and population, multinational manufacturing firms that have a lot to gain by investing  inNigeria.
“Not only do they have access to our large market, Nigeria can serve as a base for them to export goods to other markets in Africa. Our efforts at putting in policy measures to encourage improved production of made in Nigeria goods, is driven out of the need to create jobs and wealth for our growing population,” he said.
“The impact of a manufacturing plant also goes beyond its immediate environment, as it also enables the growth of SMEs that work to meet the needs of the manufacturing plants and the staff. This is in addition to the skills transfer gains that could be made when our people are able to acquire knowledge on new technological skills”.