Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has blamed lack of synergy among the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for their inability to access the numerous funding opportunities available to them.
He has therefore suggested an effective monitoring and evaluation mechanism for MSME funds to address the existing gaps to enable the economy to grow.
Osinbajo who made the suggestion at the 2015 National MSMEs Summit with the theme, “Entrepreneurship for National Development: The Place of MSMEs in the Economy Under the Change Agenda,” in Abuja said, ”we need a very effective monitoring and evaluation strategy so that we can address where exactly the gaps and the shortfalls are.
“But today, it is evident that the programmes are there; it is evident that the resources are there; it is also evident that the entrepreneurs are there; those who want to get engaged are there. But we need to make that very important link between the two.”
He said it was either there was no connection or that it was difficult for the entrepreneurs to access them. The Vice President observed that the reasons for the difficulty was because officials were not actually required to account for every person that was receiving the fund.
“I think it is very important, going forward, that all those in the public sector should sit together and work out a way by which we will be able to actually measure all the deliverables in this sector.
“For instance, we know we are supposed to fund a certain number of people. Who are these people? Can we verify them? How much are they getting? In what ways are their performances measurable?, and how do we measure their performances?”
Osinbajo said that effective coordination among agencies was needed to remove the overlaps and streamline all the different interventions in order to avoid wastages.
According to him, efforts would be made to improve the ease of doing business index, which makes Nigeria one of the worst places for doing business. He said it required a determination on the part of the people to ensure a cleanup of the environment and making things to work.
Osinbajo said it was the determination of the Buhari administration to give every Nigerian the fair chance to do business by making it easy to get business permits following due process.
He said the summit should not end at mere talking but acting to promote the Nigerian spirit in growing business despite the economic challenges in the country.
In an address, the Minister of State for Trade, Industry and Investment, Hajia Aisha Abubakar, said the summit was aimed at removing all the bottlenecks to investment.
She said Nigeria was blessed with no fewer than 44 solid minerals in sufficient quantity, adding that there was need to harness them to stem the tide of poverty and joblessness bedevilling the youth population.
“One of the most critical challenges confronting the nation is how to ensure that the strong micro-economic performances translate to improvement in the living standards of our citizens. This is why the development of the MSMEs is imperative in view of dwindling oil revenue.
“This is a sub sector that has the potential to create jobs, reduce poverty, grow the middle class and shift the paradigm of wealth in the country,” she said.
She said the sector contributed about 70 per cent to the national economy but was faced with numerous challenges such as access to finance, markets and information, inadequate infrastructure, high cost of doing business, and lack of business development skills.
She promised that the administration would pay the relevant attention to the sector for economic growth via proper policy focus and harmonization of fragmented MMSEs initiatives as well as constant dialogue with entrepreneurs.
The Director-General, SME Development Agency of Nigeria, Alhaji Bature Masari, advocated the establishment of an MMSE bank to position the enterprises for empowerment and job creation.
Masari said that the reality caused by dwindling oil revenue called for diversification of the economy which could be propelled by the MMSE operators.
He said that statistics showed that in 2010, there were 17.3 million MSMEs employing about 32.4 million and contributing 46 percent to the GDP.
He, however, said that in another survey in 2014, MSMEs grew to 32 million employing 59 million, representing 84.2 per cent of the labour force, contributing 48 per cent to GDP and 7.2 per cent of export.
Masari added that about 99.8 percent of the 32 million of the MMSEs were micro enterprises and that deliberate efforts should be made to support the sector.
Source sunnewsonline.com/new/osinbajo-seeks-synergy-among-msmes-donor-agencies/
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