BY ONYEKA AJUMOBI ONOCHIE
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, has said that the Nigerian Content Intervention (NCI) Fund, has hit an all-time high of $350m, two years after it was established in 2017 with a $200m fund managed by the Bank of Industry.
According to him, the NCI Fund was provided to qualified stakeholders in the Oil and Gas Industry on five loan product categories.
Revealing this in a statement, Sunday, July 5, through his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Julius Bokoru, the minister said the NCI Fund which was increased by $150m to hit $350m followed the approval made by the management board of the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board, stressing that the council approved that $100m from the additional funds would be deployed to boost the five existing loans for the NCI Fund.
The NCI Fund covers credit facilities in the manufacturing, asset acquisition, contract finance, loan refinancing and community contractor financing.
The minister emphasized that $20m and $30m equally approved would be channeled into two newly developed product categories, which he described as Intervention Fund for Women in Oil and Gas and PETAN Products comprising working capital loans and capacity building loans for PETAN member companies.
Guidelines for the NCI Fund provides that beneficiaries of the Manufacturing Loan and Asset Acquisition Loan could access a maximum of $10m, even as those for Contract Finance Loan could access up to $5m, while beneficiaries of Loan- Refinancing facility could equally get $10m.
The minister also disclosed that beneficiaries of the Community Contractor Finance Scheme could get a maximum of N20m, noting that the maximum tenure for all credit facilities would be five years.