The Director General and Chief Executive officer of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Mr Olawale Tunde Fasanya has disclosed that his agency is committed to the growth and improvement of MSME’S in the nation.
According to him, The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are globally acknowledged as the oil required for lubricating the engine of socio-economic transformation of any nation.
The MSME sector is strategically positioned to absorb up to 80% of jobs, improve per capita income, increase value addition to raw materials supply, improve export earnings and step-up capacity utilisation in key industries.
The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) represent one of the most important sectors of our economy. Of the 39.6 million NMSMEs (as at 31st December, 2020) in Nigeria that employs over 62.5 million people (80.2% of the national labour force) and contributes about 46.31% to the GDP and 6.21% to exports, about 38.4 million are micro-enterprises (96.9%).
Thus, growth in this sector is directly correlated with growth in the economy as a whole and in the level of employment throughout Nigeria.
One of the most critical challenges confronting us as a nation is how to ensure that our strong macro-economic performances translate to improvements in the living standards of our citizens and growth in the MSMEs sub-sector.”
The sector is structured across other key sectors, including Agriculture, Mining and Quarrying, Building and Construction, Manufacturing, Solid Minerals, etc, and thus has strong linkages with the entire range of economic activities in the country.
They play a pivotal role through several pathways that go beyond job creation. They are growth-supporting sectors that not only contribute significantly to improve living standards, but also bring substantial local capital formation and are responsible for driving innovation and competition in developing economies.
Governments at all levels have undertaken initiatives to promote the growth International Journal of Innovative Development & Policy Studies and development of MSMEs.
The general perspective is that MSMEs are seen as accelerating the attainment of broad socio-economic objectives, including poverty reduction, employment generation, wealth creation, among others.
Meanwhile, for us at SMEDAN, we are more concerned about how you can run your vocation as a business. That is, even after acquiring a vocation, how do you run it successfully as a business and that is where we step in. My analogy is that the world has gone beyond the era of “teach me how to fish”, what is more important now is “what do you do with the fish”?
The Agency is also saddled with the responsibility of contributing to the attainment of every policy of the Federal government of Nigeria and the Cluster Development Approach of the Ministry of Trade and Investment.
SMEDAN’s activities are geared towards building capacity for people to run their business profitably. You can be a graduate of Medicine or a qualified doctor does not mean you can run a hospital, profitably and sustainably.
SMEDAN provide the support to put young and old entrepreneurs on a right path to success and by extension grow the nation’s economy.
As part of its unwavering commitment to job creation, wealth creation, poverty alleviation and food security and entrepreneurship training in Nigeria, recently, SMEDAN, in partnership with the Prisons Fellowship of Nigeria, the Nigerian Correctional Service and the Covenant University organized a training programme which culminated in the graduation and matriculation ceremony of the inmates of the medium security prisons in Kirikiri, Apapa, Lagos.
Also, Fasanya disclosed that “In an effort to ensure a credible access to more affordable finance for MSMEs in Nigeria, the Agency is partnering with an NGO, the African Centre for Global Entrepreneurial Leadership (ACGEL) to implement the Leadership Entrepreneurial Game Show (LEGS) where successful participants will be given N5,000,000.00 (Five million naira only) worth of grants and tools.
The game show is on-going now and all existing and potential entrepreneurs are encouraged to log into www.legs.africa for free registration. You may be the next lucky winner.
The Agency is also partnering with the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Jaiz Bank and Sterling Bank to implement the Matching Fund Programme for Micro and Small Enterprises towards increasing access to finance.
This intervention is delivering credit, as a promotional mechanism to enhance enterprise output, competitiveness and job creation. Prospective beneficiaries can have access to loans between N2.1 million and N5.0 million.
This programme had been executed in the following States: FCT, Kaduna, Oyo, Plateau, Kano, Imo and Edo and are set for disbursement at the moment. While enterprises from Katsina, Kogi, Nasarawa,
Niger, Jigawa, Bauchi and Adamawa States have submitted their business plans and awaiting processing.
Very soon, the programme will commence in Ondo, Osun, Lagos, Cross River, Anambra, Delta and Enugu States.
The portal for the application will open by the end of August, 2022. All suitably qualified MSEs in the agribusiness sub-sector are to apply via the SMEDAN website www.smedan.gov.ng by clicking SMEDAN/STERLING matching fund programme icon.
Those of you that will go into agribusiness can also benefit from this initiative.
