LABOR'S agriculture spokesman has slammed the performance of a government loan department based in Orange, saying it is failing to deliver crucial money for drought-affected farmers when they needed it.
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Joel Fitzgibbon responded to media coverage saying Regional Investment Corporation loans were taking six to 12 months to be approved, saying the organisation was always a political exercise by the Coalition owing to the decision to send the office to Orange shortly after The Nationals lost the state seat.
"It won't do much if it's not sustainable," he said.
"It's struggling for a workforce and it's not delivering for farmers.
"Struggling farmers don't have six months to wait, let alone a year."
RIC loans of up to $2 million do not charge fees and offer two years without interest, three years interest-only repayments and the remaining five years to repay the loan.
Minister for Water Resources David Littleproud answered questions about the RIC on Tuesday, saying refinancing a $2 million debt through the RIC would save $150,000 in interest and the option was popular.
"We'll be saying to the RIC you have to respond quickly but the banks also have to as well," he said.
However, Mr Fitzgibbon said he did not accept the argument.
"They said the states weren't capable of this work and now they're blaming the banks - this was designed to take business off the banks," he said.
"It's one thing to establish a system of cheap finance to assist drought-affected farmers, however, you need the systems to deliver the loans."
A RIC spokeswoman confirmed the average time to settle a loan was six months from when the completed application was submitted.
"This isn't just approved, this is settled with the money in the customer's bank account," she said.
The spokeswoman said of the time, the RIC spent about 65 working days processing the loan and the remainder was with commercial banks and the time customers took to provide the required loan information.
"The RIC recognises that six months is still too long and is working to reduce its loan handling time to 45 working days," she said.
"The assessment team has recently been expanded with more to be appointed soon and the application process has been improved - the best thing customers can do is submit the required information as quickly as possible to keep the process moving."
The spokeswoman said only be in "very exceptional and rare circumstances" would a loan take a year to be approved.
"Since the RIC's inception in July 2018, approximately 1.5 per cent of total RIC loans have taken 12 months to approve," she said.
"The RIC has approved $387 million in loans for farmers with businesses receiving $34 million into their accounts in January alone."
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