RIMA Loan Defaulters To Face Legal Actions

The defaulters of Rivers State Micro-finance Agency (RIMA) empowerment loan scheme would soon face legal actions as a means of loan recovery.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive of RIMA, Mr Innocent Iyalla Harry, who made this known to The Tide in an interview in Port Harcourt, said that the agency would take a legal action if the time of grace elapsed, as “no one would be allowed to stop others from benefiting from the scheme.”

Harry noted that the agency decided to use the Rural Financial Institutions (RFI) to avoid situations where individuals would play funny games with public funds, saying that the RFIs are working hard to recover the remaining 20 per cent part of the loan that is yet to be recovered.

“We have set machineries in place through the co-operatives to recover the loans.

We will pursue legal action if RFIs exhaust the strategies because this is government money, except in the case of death”, he said.

The RIMA boss also called on the 2013 beneficiaries to ensure that they meet up with the repayment procedures to avoid the negative effect of such actions to other members of the local government who desire to benefit from the scheme.

Meanwhile, 5,530 citizens across the 23 local government areas of the state are expected to benefit from RIMA’s loan in 2013.

Out of this number, 4,410 entrepreneurs would come from the 21 LGs in the rural areas, while Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor LGAs would have 1,120 entrepreneurs empowered.