By Hillary Asemota
The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has stated that 854 youths who applied for the first tranche of the N3 billion of the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) were disqualified from accessing the loan because of invalid contact details for communications, challenges with AGSMEIS or COVID-19 Loan, even as some were above 35 years.
In a statement made available to EXTRAORDINAIREPEOPLE.COM, on Sunday by the Director of Press and Public Affairs in the Ministry, Mr. Mohammed Manga, said an advisory from the ministry revealed that some applications were turned down because the applicants did not provide valid or correct contact details for communication on further steps in the loan application; or had existing AGSMEIS or COVID-19 Loan while some others were more than 35 years old, which puts them beyond the age bracket for youth.
“Other reasons are that the applicants had poor credit rating or currently had a non-performing loan with some others failing to provide a valid BVN as well as incomplete or incorrect BVN.
According to him, the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund (NYIF), operated by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, has disbursed loans to 5,200 youth amounting to N1,629,220,000.00 (One billion, six hundred and twenty-nine million two hundred and twenty thousand naira)
Manga, said: “The information is contained in the latest update provided to the Ministry by the NIRSAL Micro Finance Bank (NMFB), which disburses the loan.
“The update also showed that it was prepared to disburse to another batch of 25,000 youth as soon as their loan applications are approved.
“Total eligible applications approved stood at 6054 out of which the 5,200 disbursements were made, leaving the number of those that have been approved but yet to get disbursement, at 854. The number of unqualified applicants for the batch stood at 721.
The ministry however reminds beneficiaries and applicants that the monies disbursed by the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) to the youth are not grants, but repayable loans, he said.
He said: “Another batch of 25,000 youth have been pre-qualified for training ahead of final clearance for disbursement with the ministry disclosing that it was in consultations with other partners to expand the loans disbursement platform so as to fast-track access to the Fund.
“Only N3 billion has been provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) out of the N12.5billion approved for the first tranche of the NYIF.”
So far, 54.6 % of the N3 billion has been disbursed, explaining that about 25,000 are lined up for approval, training and eventual disbursement, the Director stated.