The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, said on Monday that the bank in conjunction with other financial institutions granted over N3tn in intervention loans to aid economic recovery and job creation.

Emefiele said the current focus of monetary policy was macroeconomic stability – “to build a strong, stable and resilient economy that is self-sustaining and able to weather unanticipated shocks.”

The CBN governor, represented by the Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, Edward Adamu, spoke in a lecture titled, ‘The role of central banks in managing economic downturns’ that he delivered at the 40th anniversary/convocation lecture at the Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti.

Emefiele said, “Specifically, under the Anchor Borrowers Programme, we have disbursed N948bn to 4,478,381 smallholder farmers who cultivated 5.2million hectares of farmland across the country, thereby creating 12.5 million direct and indirect jobs.

“Under our Targeted Credit Facility, which was meant to help households and businesses that suffered significant losses during the pandemic, we have disbursed N368.79bn to 778,000 beneficiaries comprising 648,052 households and about 130,000 SMEs.

“We have also disbursed N1.452tn to 337 large real sector projects in agriculture, manufacturing, services, and mining under our Real Sector Support Facility. In healthcare, 122 major healthcare projects have been funded to the tune of N115.36bn.”

He added, “So far, the CBN, working with the DMBs and participating financial institutions has granted over N3tn in intervention loans that have undoubtedly aided economic recovery and employment generation.”