The Managing Director, Bank of Industry, Mr. Olukayode Pitan, says the bank has provided a total of N24billionn to industrialists in Kano State.

He gave the figure in Abuja during a meeting with the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje.

He stated that that the bank through the disbursement of the funds had generated about 96,000 direct and indirect jobs in the Small Medium Enterprises as well as Micro Small and Medium Enterprises.

He said that the funds were disbursed through different funding windows such as the BoI/Kano State Government matching fund; the Bol-Dangote fund; and the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (Market Moni).

He gave some of the sectors of the economy where the funds were invested as agribusiness, petrochemical and gas, metal fabrication, infrastructure and solid mineral.

Pitan said, “Generally, as of 31th August, 2017, the bank had provided loans in excess of N24.02bn to the SMEs and the MSMEs, across the state with over 96,000 direct and indirect jobs.”

He added that some of the business concerns that were supported by the bank included cooperative, business enterprises and limited liability.

He said, “In its continuous bid to deepen its credit delivery process, the BoI has commenced cluster-based programmes that are targeted at funding projects in the 40 identified clusters and to this effect, the BoI shall continue to accord priority to these clusters under the programme.

“Some of the these clusters include rice cluster in Kura, Kabiya and Bunkure-Argo mechanisation, Tomato cluster in Kadawa-tomato fund and leather cluster at Kofa Wambai-leather fund.”

He also disclosed that a loan of over N101.6m covering seven companies had been approved and awaiting disbursement.

Pitan, however, called on the government to release the second tranche of the N500m under the N2bn matching fund programme to enable the bank to accelerate the pace of industrial development in the state.

He explained that the bank had retrained its workers and provided additional personnel and upgraded its logistics requirement to meet the needs of the state office.