National Development Bank still waiting for K130m allocation

By MALUM NALU

National Development Bank has not received a toea of the K130 million allocated to it in the 2012 national budget, despite all the accompanying publicity and massive interest, The National reports.

 In the 2012 national budget handed down last December, the NDB Bank got a huge recapitalisation of K130 million in the budget, however, managing director Richard Maru revealed yesterday (Thursday) that nothing had been forthcoming to date.

NDA managing director Richard Maru…still waiting for the K130 million budget allocation.-Nationalpic by MALUM NALU

 The budget allocation of K130 million would be broken down as follows: Agriculture credit support – K100 million; Tourism credit support – K5 million; Local business guarantee scheme – K10 million; Small Medium Enterprises development programme – K10 million; and Fisheries credit support – K5 million.

 One of the initiatives the NDB wanted to introduce this year under the K100 million submission was the re-introduction of the Stret Pasin Stoa concept.

 This is where a husband and wife team manage a shop (mini-supermarket) built by NDB and later own it after NDB has recovered its cost.

 Maru said they had received hundreds of applications since the beginning of this year but they could not be processed unless funds were available.

 “NDB had not received 1t as yet,” he said.

 “Everyone’s lining up but we have not got a toea.

 “The NDB is concerned that all our programmes are being delayed.

 “We are disappointing our people, because politicians have raised their expectations, but we can’t meet these expectations.

 “We have had meetings with finance and treasury and we are just waiting.

 “We are hoping that this month, we will receive the first tranche.”

 Maru said the government had given the responsibility for approving agriculture loans to NDB, after the failure of the controversial National Agriculture Development Plan (NADP), where millions of kina was swindled by “paper farmers”.

 He said this was because NDB was one of the best-managed state-owned enterprises and government departments in the country.

 It last month announced a record after-tax profit of K9.4 million - after having gone through three insolvencies.

 This compares to a mere K1.5m profit in 2010 - a record 620% increase in profit in one year.

 It is the biggest profit the bank has recorded since 1967.

 “It is no surprise that the government has decided to park funds here,” Maru said.

 “They realised that they must stop the squandering

 “Up to K400 million has been squandered (under the NADP).”

 “Where are the projects?

 “Where is the impact?”