The attention of the Osun State Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Cooperatives, and Empowerment, has been drawn to a post spreading on Facebook and other social media, where libelous allegations were made against the Commissioner for Commerce, Industry, Cooperatives and Empowerment, Dr. Bode Olaonipekun, and the Ministry claiming to have collected #30,000 from the AGSMEIS Loans Applicants, which was posted by a Facebook pseudo account named as Ejigbo Parrot. For record purposes, we are compelled to respond to these malicious posts and correct the misrepresentations and misinformation contained therein.
We wish to inform the general public that the Commissioner and the ministry are not in any way connected to any dubious business and as such, the post on Social media is far from the truth, I want to urge the general public to disregard the propagandist spreading the fake information.
The general public should note that "AGSMEIS is not an OSUN State Government program. It is a CBN program and the payment made was to CBN-approved consultants, and the payment was for basic requirements that must be met before loan application consideration and eventual disbursement, which include:
1. Training
2. Portal registration
3. Business plan
"The State through the Ministry of Commerce only provided the ease of process for our applicants from OSUN and followed up by ensuring that applicants from OSUN are enlisted and uploaded in the CBN’s disbursement portal; which was done before NIRSAL Microfinance Bank halted the disbursement until July 2022 when it started again. We have it on record that disbursement has resumed as some applicants in OSUN have received approval messages in recent times.
"Assuredly, as disbursement has begun again now, every applicant should be on alert and we can be sure that one after the other every applicant will be considered.
"There are other agencies all around that were CBN accredited consultants that did not have anything doing with The Ministry of Commerce and thus, AGSMEIS applicants under such consultants are not registered under our arrangement. The Consultants that worked with The Ministry only trained less than 1,500 applicants. 20,000 applicants' claimed to have paid #30,000 to the Ministry of Commerce or the Hoñ Commissioner is a total falsehood. Also, it must be noted that the applicants relate directly to the consultants on a common platform monitored by the Ministry, where issues relating to the AGSMEIS loan are discussed.
"Ministry of Commerce only facilitated a form of one-stop-shop for Osun applicants to start and complete the process at a location to avert unnecessary spending and logistics problems on the part of our applicants. Even though the Commissioner and the Special Adviser applied in Ministry applied for the same loan, their names have not featured in the released approvals to date”
Given the foregoing, we would like to inform the general public that the publication was part of an orchestrated campaign of calumny aimed at damaging the reputation of the Commissioner for Commerce, Industry, Cooperatives and Empowerment, Dr. Bode Olaonipekun and the ministry and bringing it into public odium and disrepute. Our motive to be open is not negotiable and the list of applicants showing the total number of approvals, those under consideration with CBN as well as those under processing with the consultants will be available in the Ministry for those who are out to find out the real position of the loan processing and not blackmailers paid to smear the good intents of the Ministry and that of the referred and results-oriented Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Dr. Bode OLAONIPEKUN.
We however urge the promoters of the said malicious posts to henceforth stop disseminating false information but rather practice developmental and truthful investigative journalism.
Signed:
*Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Cooperatives, and Empowerment*
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