Lapo Microfinance Bank has denied report by an online media platform claiming that the lender was chasing its debtors to recover loans despite the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown.
In a statement, Lapo Microfinance Bank management described the report as false insisting that it closed down its operations, credit operations inclusive, across Nigeria on Wednesdays, March 25, 2020 few days before the Lockdown directive for Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory and a full month before the said publication.
“For the notice of our clients and the public, the decision was widely publicised with a press statement in some national Newspapers; radio jingles were deployed in pidgin, Hausa and Yoruba. In addition, information banner was displayed on all our Social Media handles while bulk SMS were sent to our clients. LAPO Microfinance Bank has been distributing food items, mainly rice & tomatoes paste to its Clients across the country, to alleviate the obvious hardship caused by the crisis. Also, LAPO Microfinance Bank has also made cash contributions to two states to complement their ongoing efforts to provide palliatives to low-income Nigerians, a segment to which our clients belong,” the bank said.
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Continuing, it said all senior manager of LAPO Microfinance Bank and key field managers have been making thousands of telephone calls weekly, to our Clients checking on their well-being and educating them on COVID-19 precautions.
“Given the above, it is sad and unfortunate that a rather popular online news platform would publish such spurious allegations and arrogate its source to an unnamed individual in Benin City (the home of LAPO) for effect. Fiction cannot be better! We take strong exception to this attempt to ‘perfume’ lazy reportage on microfinance with the name of LAPO Microfinance Bank,” the bank stated.
According to the bank, simple verification exercise would have been helpful and saved the online publication from speculation of unethical pecuniary motive