RIMA Disburses Loans, Next Month ….5,000 Beneficiaries For 1st Batch

The Rivers State Microfinance Agency (RIMA) says it has concluded modalities for the disbursement of her soft loans to about 5,000 active poor persons of Rivers origins in the first phase of the Agency’s disbursement exercise coming up in less than a month now.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of RIMA, Innocent Iyalla Harry, said at a press briefing at the corporate office of the Agency in Port Harcourt, Wednesday, that each of the beneficiaries would get an average loan size of N50,000.00.

Harry who declined comment on why the Agency could not disburse the loan to deserving beneficiaries said his administration was now determined to end years of expectation of RIMA credit to give a new meaning to the efforts of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi administration in improving the living standard of the critical mass of the population.

In the press briefing entitled “Progress of Rivers State Microfinance Agency,” Harry said as part of the modalities, RIMA has formed strategic partnership with Micro-finance Banks (MFBs) operating in the state, resulting in the prequalification of such banks which would handle the disbursement of the loan proper.

Though, the RIMA boss did not disclose the numbers of MFBs engaged to handle the disbursement, the loan is expected to be repaid in five year’s time.

Harry was explicit that those to benefit from the soft loans should be members of community-based cooperatives and groups, akin to the GRAMEEN model in Bangladesh.

He reminded all that the soft loan is not what he called “political gift”, regretting that Nigeria has a bad credit culture.

Against that background, he said, RIMA was exploiting the possibility of either creating a specialised court for the activities of the Agency or interfering with the judiciary so that some courts can be dedicated for speedy handling of RIMA loan recovery related issues.

On the sustainability of the soft loan in future, Harry said though RIMA is state government concern, the Agency has plans to attract foreign donors’ interest towards promoting the development of small businesses in the state.

RIMA was created following the passage into law of Microfinance Act No. 6 of 2008. Since then, Amaechi administration released N2 billion capital fund to the Agency for disbursement to target beneficiaries from the 23 LGAs of the state, but the disbursement was not made till date, a situation that frustrated the peoples’ expectation at benefiting from the state government gesture.

Mary Chinda & Rose Avor