The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Foundation is now on the trail of 75 corps members who took between N300,000 and N400,000 loans to start small businesses but refused to pay after four years.
Herald Nigeria learnt that the defaulting corps members used their certificates as collateral during their service year, as that was the only way to access the loans.
But the corps members had abandoned their certificates with the foundation for almost four years.
The NYSC Foundation Chief Executive Officer, Bako Ventim, disclosed this on Monday during the opening of Skills’ Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development workshop at the NYSC Orientation Camp in Kubwa, Abuja.
The director said, “We have been providing loans to corps members and our interest rate is one digit. There is no collateral except the NYSC certificate and two guarantors. We make the conditions very flexible so that the corps members can benefit from these loans.
“We have a challenge where corps members have refused to pay back the loans. We have over 100 corps members who took the loans but some of them have not paid back and we still have their NYSC certificates with us. They have not come to claim these certificates for a number of years.
“We give as much as between N300,000 and N400,000 depending on the business proposals. From the records, we have over 75 corps members that have defaulted and we are pursuing them.”
Olalekan Ajimoti – Blogger, Content Writer, and Digital Marketer helping brands and retailers build 8-figure e-commerce since 2016.
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