How NISRAL grew its balance sheet to N140bn- MD

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL Plc), Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed has said that the company is recording geometric progression in terms of growth.
He revealed that  the company has grown its balance sheet to a sum of NGN140billion.
Acccording to him, in the last one year, the fi has  has accelerated the flow of over N30billion to agricultural value chains from commercial banks and other sources.
He noted that it has aggregated over 3,000 agro geo-cooperatives with 500,000 farmers with 800,000 hectares of land for commercial farming.
He made this intimation during  a briefing in Abuja on the performance of the company in 2020.
He said: “Along the line, we have grown our balance sheet to NGN140billion, our equity by 1,415% and our total assets by 87%. The number of farmers we have worked with has also grown, especially as we fully unveiled our Agro Geo-Cooperative model in the outgone year.
“In the course of the last 13 months, we facilitated the flow of over N30billion into agricultural value chains from commercial banks and other sources.
“Even though our operations suffered a stall during the lockdown of 2020, our technological depth gave us a pathway to return to work while remaining safe and socially-distanced. As you know, it was important to continue, even increase, food and raw materials production as the pandemic bit harder.
“As enablers of actors in the agricultural value chain, we remained operational for those who were allowed by the Federal Government to move around for the purpose of producing food and rendering essential services in the society.
He said in the last quarter of 2020, the Agricultural company attracted  over N148billion in finance and investments for agriculture and agribusiness.
He added: “By remaining operational, our numbers grew: As at Q4 2020, we had achieved the following:
“We have also been up to some high-level advocacy. To curb the dismal levels of post-harvest losses that Nigeria suffers, and create efficient routes for commodity movement and storage, we are engaging with and supporting the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in the development of a policy on Secured Agricultural Commodity Transport and Storage Corridors (SATS-C).
“While pursuing our mandate that translates to positively impacting Nigeria’s economy, we have been building a world class corporate entity too.
“In the past year, we further improved NIRSAL’s structure and systems, maintained compliance with the International Financial Reporting Standards and successfully implemented the Balanced Scorecard performance management approach to tap the best from our talented employees.”