Cross River NDDC trainees bemoan non-release of start-up funds

Business Day

28 March 2011

Cross River NDDC trainees bemoan non-release of start-up funds .

.…Commission fears situation may create restiveness

Hundreds of youths from Cross River State involved in the Niger Delta Development Commission’s (NDDC) N500 million Credit Entrepreneurial Development training scheme in various vocational skills; have bemoaned the non-release of their start-up funds, four months after concluding training. The trainees, who were made to fill out loan applications through the NDDC consultant, at a Diamond Bank branch in Calabar late October last year, say they are yet to receive their first tranche more than four months after.

They alleged that the bank “does not seem reasonably committed to disburse the loan.” According to some of the trainees who spoke with BusinessDay in Calabar last week, most of them have repeatedly been told by the bank officials to exercise patience, as the process would “materialise within a week. This has been the pattern since December 2010,” an anonymous trainee, noted.