The Nigerian Correctional Service Staff Cooperative Society has acquired 160 units of land and a hotel within two years.
The cooperative also said that its three microfinance banks are doing well after they were recapitalised and new directors appointed, adding that its vision was to inject N3bn into the financial institutions and merge them into a national bank.
Disclosing these at the 26th Annual General Meeting of the cooperative in Abuja, the General Manager, COCOS, Lydia Abraham, a Controller of Corrections, said the investment body had ventured into new areas of investments.
According to her, the cooperative diversified from the supply of food items, electronic gadgets and household goods to investments in real estate and landed properties.
She said, “Within the last two years, the cooperative concluded the procurement of 160 units of land at the KYC La Villa Diamante City Estate located behind ACO Estate along the airport road, Abuja. The project was flagged off on the 21st of November, 2020.
“Beneficiaries have since begun payments which some have been able to complete their structures while many others are in progress. During the lockdown in 2020, the cooperative got approval, which was followed by the allocation of land at the national headquarters to commence the construction of a hotel.
“The hotel was commissioned on the 1st of March 2021 by the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. The hotel has 108 rooms, a swimming pool, lounges, conference hall, rooftop garden, gym etc. It began test operations in August 2021.”
Abraham further disclosed that the Borstal Microfinance Bank Limited, Kaduna; Nigerian Prisons Microfinance Bank Limited, Ibadan; and PRISCO Microfinance Bank Limited, Enugu, owned by the cooperative were also doing well after the injection of N90m into two of the banks in January 2021.
She added, “In order to fully recapitalise, the cooperative in collaboration with Borstal Microfinance Bank, Kaduna, is in the process of injecting an additional N70m into the two other MfBs to meet the recapitalisation deadline of April 30, 2022.
“Our vision is to grow the three banks to state banks with capital of N1bn each and then ultimately merge this into one national bank with a capital of N5bn.”
