Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo could not hide his feelings towards Delta State last week, as he declared, “Delta State is booming with business initiatives and ideas”, while assuring the entrepreneurs of Federal Government support.
The event was the 25th edition of the national Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Clinic which held on Wednesday and Thursday, November 6 and 7 at the Event Centre and Cenotaph, Asaba.
The two-day event which was organised under the Office of the Vice President was hosted by the Delta State Government.
The event saw over 14 Federal Government regulatory agencies and development partners, interfacing with entrepreneurs in the state, and it offered a rare opportunity for the new generation of entrepreneurs trained and established by the Ifeanyi Okowa administration to relate with the officials and representatives of the agencies.
The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control NAFDAC), the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Corporate Affairs Commission (ÇAC) amongst other agencies, were on ground to educate the entrepreneurs on how to cope with challenges of registering their businesses etc.
Also, the Bank of Industry (BoI), Bank of Agriculture (BoA), and some partner banks like Access Bank offered tips on how the entrepreneurs could access the banks’ various credit facilities to support their enterprises.
It was really two days of brainstorming by the participants as well as time for display of products by the entrepreneurs who were more in their youthful age.
In his address, Ifeanyi Okowa, the state governor, reeled out the achievements of his administration in developing the state’s economy since 2015 when he came on board.
He revealed, “As evidence of the economic impacts of our MSMEs policies and programmes, statistics derived from the economic data of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that there was accelerated growth of the services sector, which is structurally dominated by micro and small enterprises from average annual rate of 8.9 percent (2013-2015) to the current annual average rate of 13.2 percent (2015-2017). Similarly, the agricultural sector interventions resulted in agricultural growth from annual average of 8.6 percent (2013-2015) to annual average of 13.3 percent (2015-2017).”
Quoting Godwin Emefiele, governor of Central Bank (CBN), Governor Okowa noted that Nigeria has over 37 million MSMEs that employ over 65 percent of workforce but unfortunately, funding gaps, energy problems and infrastructure deficit in the country have stood in the way of their anticipated growth and maturation.
Okowa described the clinic as “very timely and strategic” and urged the participants to take full advantage of the rare opportunity to establish beneficial contacts and relationships with the regulatory agencies and development finance agencies.
VP Osinbajo, who in his address, commended Delta State for booming with business initiatives and ideas, explained that the idea behind the national MSMEs clinic was to bring government regulatory agencies closer to the people by assembling them all in one place.
“It affords MSMEs a platform where they can bring their challenges and seek the intervention of the regulatory agencies rather than go from one agency to the other,” he said.
According to him, “Through the clinic, we have launched a one-stop-shop which brings all the relevant agencies together in one state so as to enable MSMEs access their services. We are trying to ensure that in some of the states ready to partner with us, we have all the representatives of the regulatory agencies.”
He said that the Federal Government would be happy to partner with Delta State to have the one-stop-shop, adding that the vision of the scheme was to encourage states to create sub-national versions of the clinic, and also to encourage legislators at the national and state levels to host their version at the various constituencies across the country.
“By doing this, we expect that leaders will be able to better understand the issues surrounding small businesses and to regularly receive feedback on the regulatory bottlenecks affront MSMEs within their various areas of interest and influence,” he said.
While revealing that some states have already begun to launch their own versions of the MSME clinics, he expressed hope that Delta State would launch its own very soon.
He further disclosed, “We have also begun launching shared facilities across the nation, and the purpose is to provide reasonably priced assets to world class business equipments for MSMEs in cluster phases.
According to him, “What that means is that MSMEs have cleared the financial burden of having to buy the equipment in order to do business. The shared facilities have been pre -certified by relevant agencies, removing the need for the MSMEs to pursue the certification. “So, by taking away the burden of acquiring and managing the equipment, the clinic intends to further catalyst the growth of MSMEs. We already have pilot editions of shared facilities in Bauchi and Oyo states, and there will be more to follow.”
He noted that the inspiration for the shared facility came during last editions of the summit where the common complaints by participants were on the ease of access to production and operating equipment.
He disclosed that the shared facility project is in partnership between the FG, interested states, Bank of Industry (BoI), NEXIM Bank and the private sector, and that FG intends to launch one facility in each state and then encourage the states to go on statewide.
He said that the FG was aware
of the complaints about approvals for business and is working with all the leadership of all the agencies to see that MSMEs can get faster, more efficient and generally more satisfying services in exchange for the fees that they are charged.
“In some cases, we believe that the fees have to be reduced so that more businesses can have access to the kind of regulatory support required. Nobody should have to wait endlessly for regulatory certification. I will continue to push the reform agenda to deal with this. The good news is that the regulatory agencies are attuned to the fact that they are first facilitators before being the commercial police for standard enforcers,” he explained.
According to him, “The President has issued an executive order that NAFDAC should stop the planned increase in tariff on MSMEs-related programmes on account that it will be unduly burdensome for the operators. Access to low cost finance is a major problem. We are all trying to work to see how to achieve single digit interest rates for MSMEs.”
Going by the words of the Vice President, observers say Deltans are looking forward to better days ahead as it is believed that the two-day event would turn things around for the better.
Mercy Enoch, Asaba
