November 01, (THEWILL) – Exactly six days after it launched Nigeria’s digital currency, eNaira, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday unveiled the selection criteria for private sector companies to participate in its new financial instrument tagged, “The 100 for 100 PPP – Policy on Production and Productivity,”.
The initiative was announced at the unveiling of the eNaira last week.
In a notice signed by its Development Finance Department, CBN explained that the selection criteria for participation would be premised on the immediate contribution of the concerned businesses to economic growth, jobs creation, and social impact.
It added that in selecting the companies, evidence-based, transparent and measurable criteria shall be deployed in order to achieve the objective of the initiative.
The apex bank said the move was to ensure the operational framework for a robust and transparent process for identifying and selecting high-impact companies and projects under its 100 for 100 PPP.
“These are projects that must catalyse sustainable employment-led economic growth through increased domestic production and productivity in the near term.
“The projects for consideration shall be new projects in existing companies requiring new machinery and other support and must have the greatest potential to achieve significant scale in their in-country production and for domestic consumption and exports,” it stated.
It noted that the broad objective of introducing the instrument was to reverse the nation’s over-reliance in imports as the project will create a platform that targets and supports the right companies and projects with potential to immediately transform and jumpstart the productive base of the economy.
“This instrument is for only new projects; will not cover any refinance of existing facilities and will be subject to independent evaluation by international audit firms.
“All intervention under this project will be made public and published in national dailies. The CBN will work with fiscal authorities to facilitate power sector, port and export reforms as well as ease of doing business to improve competitiveness in Nigeria so as to complement and propel this initiative.
“Candidate companies with satisfactory performance are invited to apply through their banks effective, today November 01, 2021, to the CBN Department of Development Finance, Office of CBN Governor,” it added.
The CBN which listed the key areas of focus said the financial instrument would fund production efficiency and scalability; local content capacity; job creation and human capital development and contribution to economic growth.
Regarding local content capacity, the CBN listed the parameter to be the scale of locally sourced raw materials and the indicators to include more than 50 per cent of raw material input sourced locally as well as that more than 80 per cent of jobs created should be for Nigerians.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele explained, “Working through banks, the financial instrument will be available to their customers in critical areas to boost the production and productivity, and to immediately transform and jumpstart the productive base of the economy.
“After these 100 projects by companies in the first 100 days from November 1, we will take the next 100 companies/projects for another 100 days beginning February 1, 2022, and then another 100 companies for another 100 days beginning from May 1, 2022.”
About the Author
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
