Posted by Yar'Adua seeks economic empowerment for more Nigerians on
Eager to reduce poverty in the country, President Umar Yar'Adua, yesterday, made a commitment to encourage states and local governments across the land
Towards this end, he directed the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to intensify efforts at educating Nigerians on the modalities of establishing and operating small businesses.
Responding to a presentation on micro, small and medium enterprises by the Agency, the president identified the lack of requisite knowledge and finance as the principal factors preventing many Nigerians from setting up their own businesses.
He also appealed to rich Nigerians to go into productive ventures rather than embarking on projects which add little or no value to the emergence of small-scale entrepreneurs.
The president pledged to mobilise the other tiers of government to partner with SMEDAN in the establishment of business support centres (BSCs) and business information centres (BICs) in their respective domains.
The President urged SMEDAN, which offers its capacity building using the platforms of BSCs and BICs, to pay greater attention to capacity building so that small business operators could access the Small and Medium Enterprises Equity Investment Scheme (SMEEIS) and other funding windows.
'People do not know how to start their own businesses, how to access finance for their businesses, and how to prepare their business plan and that is why they hang around local, state and federal governments seeking for contracts.
That is why they cannot engage in productive businesses.
'We need to ensure that our citizens have the ability and capacity to go into SMEs and large businesses instead of the rush into politics," Yar'Adua said.
The Director-General of SMEDAN, Mrs. Modupe Adelaja said government set a target of raising the Per Capita Gross Domestic Product from the current rate of $1,000 to $5000 as a way of reducing the rate of poverty in Nigeria .
Government, she also said was aiming to create over 40 million jobs in the next ten years as a way of realising this objective, adding that the targets could be easily met through the growth of small scale industries.
Saying the country needed to move from the current distribution of wealth to embracing wealth generation, she said the other ways to offer hope and a better future for Nigerians was to increase the tax base and build skills and high skilled jobs.
But Adelaja regretted that in the area of services, intellectual property, customer relationship management, Nigeria does not have any market share in the area where India is a major player.
In this sector, 56,000 jobs are created per-day on a worldwide basis within the area of call centres.
Therefore, SMEDAN canvassed for the building, as a matter of urgency, of at least one mini-park to accommodate at least 50 enterprises in every local government.
Calling for more budgetary allocation to SMEDAN, she called for a mandatory establishment of Business Innovation Growth (BIGs) Centres by all state governments.