• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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In Enugu, the door is open for any business to succeed, opportunities abound – Agu

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The Special Adviser to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi on Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) Anayo Agu, in this interview with REGIS ANUKWUORJI in Enugu, explains why the Ugwuanyi administration puts SMEs on the top of its priority area of focus. He also speaks on other issues. Excerpts:

 

As the Special Adviser to Enugu State governor on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), how can one differentiate these class of business operators and why is the office big and respected here in state?

The micro is the smallest unit; if your total revenue without removing anything is within the threshold of₦35 million and that you employ less than about 10 persons, you are classified as micro,smallest unit. Then if your revenue is up to ₦50 million per annum and you employ less than or about 50 persons you are classified as small. You are a medium when your total revenue is within the threshold of ₦500 million and you employ about 199 persons to 200persons, now if your revenue is about ₦500 million your employees are more than 200 you are a large company. These include Coca Cola or Guinness or Aqua Rapha or all other companies we identify as large companies.The interesting thing is this,because I need to underscore this fact, 99percent

of businesses in Enugu, in fact, in Nigeria, actually belong to this micro, small and medium classification. So, you have less than about one

percent of the total population of businesses in Nigeria you can actually call large; they are less than about one percent. So if our economy is doing well, it is doing well because of the strength, productivity, the efficiency, the effectiveness, the innovation and creativity of enterprises and entrepreneurs within this small and medium enterprise classification. That is why it is important to us in Enugu State.

So, if you say we are occupying a big office, we are occupying a big office because of the importance the state government led by our governor,Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, attached to these categories of enterprises.

How do you assess the business environment in Enugu State with regards to the development of SMEs?

Let me answer it by just calling your attention to the recent review of a world bank ease of doing business. Enugu State is identified as number one in the south east,when you put all the indices together; we are classified number one. In registering business, we are classified as number three in the country. So, that is the best way to answer that

question. In other words, what I am saying is that we still have our demons to deal with, power is still major issue here and other factors, environmental facts, but when you take them apart and deal with them one after the other, especially when we consider where we are coming from, we can say actually that we have done well. In the last three-and-half years, you can also safely say that we are easily the most peaceful place to do business in the south east, safest to do business in the south east and in terms of environmental friendly, we are number one, everybody knows that. Ok, and if you compare us with other states inthe country, you can only compare us with states like Lagos, Kaduna and

Kano in terms of all these factors, when you look at what level of attention we are paying to SMEs, what level of support,honestly you can only compare us with Lagos or Kaduna, Kano is because of population and it is receiving a lot of attention but not necessarily in terms of the ease of doing business.

For the past 3½ years, how many persons so far have benefited from Enugu SMEs Centre?

Under the life of this administration we are actually should be looking at about ten (10) thousand. I don’t have the correct number right now.  If you look at the smallest people that just needed ₦50,000 to do business, we have supported actually 7000 through the government enterprise empowerment programme and we did that all from here; talked to them, held

different outreach programmes and we are still doing that through registered cooperatives; then if you step up again and you are looking at those who required ₦500,000 to up to ₦10 million and more than that

you will be looking at again about 2000 enterprises in that category.So, that is why I said plus or minus you are just looking at about 9 to 10

thousand people that we have assisted in that sector. Currently, we just concluded the assessment and submitted to CBN over 500 enterprises. In fact, we just did that two weeks back, those are potential beneficiaries of our programmes, that is where we are.

A lot of people believe that poor access to fund is a very big challenge to business establishment; how true is that?

Yes, I believe that access to fund is a challenge and why do I say so, most commercial banks do not give loans to SMEs and there are various reasons to justify that; some will tell you that they are not organised,others will say that the risk is very high, others will also say, which I believe is the real issue, why do I bother running after an entrepreneur who makes ₦500,000 to one million naira, while I can use the same time to run after a trader in Ogbete market who probably needs ₦10 million and can pay back the money in less than 90 days? So when

they look at this quick wins, most commercial banks will go to the Ogbete person, but when you look at the growth of our economy and self-sufficiency, common sense will advise you that you go to

micro-enterprise because they are the people that actually produce what we eat and make life easy here. The trader will depend on what comes from outside here not what we are producing, so in long terms the small micro enterprise that are doing small, small things, doing your garri processing, making soap, Palm kernel crushing are actually the engine of this economy if we can reorganise them. The other thing is when you look at the economies that are actually doing well, looking at the

Americans or Europeans or the Asian Tigers it all still comes down to micro, small and medium enterprise. So, access to fund remains a challenge if you look at it from that end. Then another way to look at it is that even government intervention programmes if you look at it holistically across Nigeria, they are accurately not working well again

because most states do not have the special purpose vehicle like our centre to do these things. In fact, I spent two hours yesterday (before this interview) discussing with some guys from some of our local banks here who came and were surprised to ask about new programme the CBN is running with bankers’ committee. I was shocked by the level of ignorance, you know regarding a programme that was their own initiative; do you understand? And they were here to talk about it, so it is a challenge because if this intervention is working well, access to fund should not be an issue. You hear Central Bank say that over ₦20 billion was set aside in

2014, yet people do not have access to money and banks have access to this fund. Then the new initiative which is called is Agriculture,small and medium enterprise investment scheme, is

just a rework of the programme which was launched in 2003 but again failed woefully despite the fact that over ₦50 billion was accumulated, yet the scheme failed;so, it was a rework of that. Now, what has happened is that the bankers’ committee has demonstrated it with the Central Bank

and Central Bank is now doing the oversight function rather than the bankers’ committee.When you now bring access to fund to the state level like our own state, it is not an issue if you look at it in one way, but on the other hand it is an issue.Why is it an issue?Somebody just left here before you came, who came to discuss with us about partnership and she said that the taxi driver that broughther did not know about her programme and that she went to her banks to talk about something else they raised the issue of what she was trying to do and she was asked to come and see us, then she now asked the person who was encouraging her to come and see us a few questions to see if she can have information about us and the guy said honestly that he did not

know anything about us; then she asked simple question, in your opinion is this programme working here, and the guy said honesty I don’t know.

Interestingly, the bank in question is one of the very first banks that we approached in 2014, when I first came and also the same bank that we approached again when this administration started, so to the extent that ignorance remains a major problem, yet access to fund is a major problem; but like I always like to summarise- anywhere there is difficulty

there is ignorance because difficulty arises in ignorance.Where it is difficult to feed yourself, how to get money for your business,it does not matter what it is. Difficulty arises in ignorance, that is just the truth, so to overcome it is to seek knowledge and wisdom.When you come to us you can simply discover that access to fund is not your biggest problem, yes; just like blood is important to your body but must first have your body before the blood. So, when you walk in, don’t worry so much about how much money you need.You need first to understand exactly what you want to do; if you want to create value, what value would you want to create? This is because it is that value that money will exchange with. If that value is not clear you don’t need money, you have to know first where you want to go to; before you can say that money is stopping you from going there. So, that is just why I said I acknowledge the fact that access to fund is an issue but it is not the most important. In entrepreneurship, the most important thing is your mission,what purpose exactly do you want to serve, because in the final analysis every business, regardless of the size is a human enterprise with a value proposition;so, until we deal with this, money is not the issue. Money is important but we need first to understand your purpose, do you have the basic skill to do that purpose before you can say that money is stopping you, that is why we place a lot of emphasis on training, and training itself will be irrelevant until first you say this is what I am training in.For example, I want to do poultry, I don’t know anything about poultry you can be trained, give you basic skill on that,but until you zero in to poultry training. I can train you on generally who is an entrepreneur, give basic principles and all that but that is about it, it will not quicken you, your passion will come, you will be inflamed the moment you are in your environment, when we begin to talk about the thing that speaks to your heart. That is the only time, otherwise we can spend all the time talking about the wonderful words of entrepreneurship, but it would not move you an inch; that is the truth so we spend a lot of time to understand people first,their mission before we worry about money and before we worry about the market. These are the three things we do here, the mission, money and market.

What are your advice to SMEs, the people residing in Enugu and those intending to come and open business in Enugu?

My simple advice is that Enugu State is open for business, we don’t say it for the sake of saying it, we say it because our state government has done wonderfully well in the last 3½ years. What do I mean by that?Access to market is usually an issue in most rural markets. One of the principal achievements of this administration is road construction, opening up access to rural communities is a major one. Peace and security are usually key if you are going to invest in any place,whether it is long term or short term, Enugu is regarded not because I am saying it, police and different sources have actually acknowledged Enugu State as one of the safest places to live and do business in Nigeria, and secondly the best in the south east. Thirdly, we have this programme which is open to anybody and everybody who lives here or intends to live here, we do not worry or care or even bother about whether you are from Enugu State, which political party you belong to, which faith you confess as far as your business is here, you can access our training, our fund, you can access our support for market; you have equal opportunity with anybody and everybody that resides here. Now, if you remember May 29th 2015, the governor made a very profound statement which I normally call his social contract. He said that he should devote government resources and services to create equal opportunity to anybody, he did not say people from Enugu State, anyone who wants to make a living here, create wealth, send your children to school, help us to create a safe and secure environment where people live and that is what he has pursued through his 4-point agenda and he has kept up to it and that is why people like me,sometimes, they say we are praise-singers, but I normally say that facts don’t lie; if it is praise-singing that a man in one month commissioned 17 roads in 17 local governments, if that is praise-singing, I will sing that again, if it is praise singing that, there is peace here and we are running an inclusive government, I will praise-sing that; if it is praise singing that great reforms are going on in our schools, I will praise sing that because at the end of the day the purpose of government is the welfare and security of the citizens and if a government is paying attention not lip service to these fundamentals, if it is praise singing, I will do it.

If I bring it back home to where I am managing, if we say we have assisted close to about 9,000 persons cut across the state involving also people who are not from this state and many have come here to say you resurrected me. I never knew that something like this could be possible especially through a government agency, if that is praise singing, yes,

if it is praise singing, singing to say that since I was sworn in as special adviser to the governor on Small and Medium Enterprises not one single time have I ever suffered any kind of interference in what I do, we are doing well. We are doing well because we have the freedom, we have the encouragement, we have the support of the leadership of the state, this

does not usually happen. My name is not Ugwuanyi, my name is Agu, you understand; so, it would not be because he is his brother and therefore, that is why he is not…, what I am basically saying is that we are serving someone who truly believes that you have his support; when he delegates, he does not interfere and when you look at what has happened in other states that have issues with government intervention programmes, 99percent of it arise from interference, political manipulations, inefficiencies in the civil service but this place runs just like any private enterprise.