President Goodluck Jonathan Thursday inaugurated the National Council on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) with a task to urgently sort out fix the challenges militating against the growth of small and medium scale businesses in the country.
He particularly directed that the N220 billion fund being provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) be easily accessible by qualified MSMEs.
To realise this, the president stressed the need to develop a detailed Financing Value Chain Intervention strategy for MSMEs.
According to him, “Our commitment is to meet the aspirations of our people and in doing so, ensuring rapid economic development, benefitting all our citizens, North, South, East, or West.
“Our focus will remain to build an economy that works for all Nigerians, and the MSME Council we inaugurate today, is essential to achieving this goal.”
“The growth of MSMEs is one that is very important in any nation that aspires towards self-sufficiency. MSMEs are the innovators, the wealth creators, as well as employment generators. Every MSME today, has the potential of growing to the large corporation of tomorrow, and that is why we are now backing the initiative with the creation of this Council.”
“The N220 billion MSME fund provided by the Central Bank which I launched a few weeks ago for small businesses, will begin to address access to finance for small businesses, and Nigeria Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP) will play a role in ensuring that MSMEs in the country are bankable and viable enough to access these funds, as well as other MSME funds available.
“An urgent priority I expect this Council to take up, is the development of a detailed Financing Value Chain Intervention strategy for MSMEs, so as to address the difficulties put in the way of small businesses in their strive to access finance,” the President said.
President Jonathan again, reassured that all the 774 local government areas in the country would be covered as the MSMEs has become a central part of national policy.
He spoke further, “This coordination will extend to the state level, for which State MSME Councils have already been instituted in 10 states, and it is my hope that MSME structures will become operational in all 36 States and the FCT before long.
These councils are chaired by the State Governors and will directly report to the National Council.”
“We have successfully taken the Federal Government’s support for MSMEs to all Nigerians by decentralizing Small and Medium Scale Entreprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) from only 13 States, to all 36 States of Nigeria and FCT in just 5 months.”
“We have also identified, and are supporting at least one product in all 774 local governments in Nigeria based on each local government’s areas of competitive and comparative advantage.”
“This Council shall have the mandate to develop, support, and grow small businesses in Nigeria. To underline the importance of this Council, I have asked the Vice President to chair the council, because of its strategic importance on small business development and the economy of the country at large.”
“A National Technical Implementation Committee, will be chaired by the Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, to serve the National Council on MSMEs and fast-track the implementation of its mandate.
“If each of these businesses employs one more person, we would create over 17 million extra jobs, which would indeed be a revolution in Nigeria’s job markets. This is the unexplored power of small businesses.” He said
he lauded the Council members for heeding the call to national service, he urged them to expand the frontiers of their thoughts and ideas in order to succeed on the assignment.
Speaking, Vice President Namadi Sambo, who heads the Council, noted that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been known all over the world to be the engine room for growth in any economy.
However, he assured that the Council will not fail in the national assignment.
Also speaking, the Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga said that the inauguration of the Council is a game changer that will boost the Nigerian economy in the long run.
According to him, “Three out of four people employed in this country are from this sector, but we have never in the history of his country, treated the micro, small and medium enterprises as a sector.”
“As a result they have had to grow on their own. A country where you have about 17 to 20 million SMEs, and only 8% of them have access to finance from recognized institutions, it means that the system has not supported them in anyway.”
“A country where you have SME’s and their cost of production is very high, there is no market access, no Organisation, everyone does SMEs in one at or the other, that was the situation we had in the country.
This is a game changer, what we are doing today is saying first of all let’s get organized, which is about developing institutional framework to focus only on that sector, bringing together all federal and state government related agencies and development institutions, to get her as members of that council to address the problems of SMEs, we put them into seven pillars, these are cross cutting measures.”
On the Council are Benue State governor, Gabriel Suswam representing the North Central; Ramalan Yero (Kaduna) North West, Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe) for North East, Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun) for South West, Theodore Orji (Abia) for South East and Sarieke Dickson (Bayelsa) for South South.