February 9, 2013
What is the aim of your organisation?
The organisation was born out of a vision to solve problems related to issues of entrepreneurship development and wealth creation. It is also meant to look into poverty alleviation in our environment, because poverty is something that is dominating this country.
Nigeria is kind of contradiction of nature, where you see wealth, but you will not be able to touch it. So, what we are doing is to bridge the gap. People should be able to really see and touch the wealth of this nation one way or the other. Also we are connecting individuals to the resources they need to start to nurture, to grow their businesses.
If you are talking about resources, we are looking at financial resources like our micro finance bank, which is our financial tool and financial partner for FEDA towards reaching the grassroots.
We have other things like human resources to develop capacity for intending entrepreneurs. Again entrepreneurship is the key to growth everywhere in the world. The scenario of white collar jobs is no more sustainable.
This makes the development of entrepreneurship an absolute necessity.
How many Small and Medium Enterprises have benefited from your organisation’s capacity building in Nigeria?
We have been doing training for would- be entrepreneurs. So, if you assemble, for instance, a congregation for us, we are ready to teach them how to enhance their potential. We are bringing those things down to the level of the grassroots, which are very ordinarily very expensive.
If you want to do an entrepreneurship programme in a business school, you will know the cost. Again we have a partnership with Marine Business School, so that the people in the corporate world, the great entrepreneurs, will come together and share their experiences with the new entrepreneurs.
And we have a programme this year 2013, to produce 2300 entrepreneurs.
As an entrepreneur promoter, what is your assessment of activities of government agencies on Small/ Medium Enterprises (SME) in the country?
If you look at the Ministry of Trade and Investment, the Minister has been doing a very good job and as much as possible he is trying to make sure that Nigeria is an investment hub.
Also, he wants to reduce all the challenges and factors that discourage entrepreneur development. It is the first time an agency like the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) is registering business names within 24 hours.
I believe with time, things will be better in this country. Also the Bank of Industry, I know that they have a lot of programmes towards assisting entrepreneurs and I can tell you that from my own perspective, people have been benefiting from government programmes for the development SMEs in the country.
The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) too is trying to standardise what people are doing. Some private sector players on their part are providing opportunities where people are trained for empowerment and entrepreneurship development.
We will get there, as government is being sincere about the development of SMEs programme, because they know that wealth and job creation are based on empowerment of SMEs.
They know that whatever they are doing, one of the best ways to impact on citizens, on tax payers, is to create wealth, to create jobs. And government cannot do it alone, so it partners with local and international organisation to support its efforts.
Also many Non Government Organisations in the country have programmes for SMEs, but their impact has not been felt. What is your view about on this?
Nigeria has a lot of issues especially in the area of infrastructure development, which is a disaster.
A country that has a population of 170 million and we don’t have an adequate rail system, good road network and other infrastructure is a big problem. It even affects our agriculture produce.
Also, power is not there for the Small/ Medium Enterprises. All these affect the activities of these NGOs. The environment is not conducive for most of them to make things happen.
That is why people are not feeling the impact of SME development through the NGOs. But I can tell you that they are trying their best and also the government of the day is encouraging many of the NGO to come up.
Ten years ago, there was nothing like what we have today, where government is seeking their support and contribution to the development of the country. And people are coming up but some of them, their hands are tied, because of the bottleneck in registration. If not for the new development in the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), ordinarily it takes three to six months to register a business name in the country.
If I can employ 10 people in my organisation and empower 1,000 people yearly, other organisations are doing the same. I can tell you that one way or the other, we are making headway.
You were in an event recently where the Federal government presented data for development of SMEs in various states. As an expert, does the information reflect what is on the ground?
There is always a gap in what government is doing and what the reality on ground is. But I can tell you for the first time that government is trying to make sure that their statistics are reliable. It is not possible to get correct data because of many factors. Nigeria is a very big country.
Lack of good road network to access some areas is another challenge. Again the government has started from somewhere and what they need is to improve on it. In fact, that one government office came up with statistics on SME development in the country is commendable and they must not relent in their efforts.
Rather, they should expand their sampling.
What is the position of SME development in the 2013 budget?
The issue of budget in this country has always been that most of the allocation goes to payment of salaries of the public officials.
So any point in time, we have the majority of the budget in recurrent expenditure. What can help SMEs the most is if government will concentrate on capital budget, because as I said early, a major challenge of SME development is the lack of infrastructure facing the country.
If all these impediments are removed, the real sector and the SMEs will be encouraged. But, as of now, what we are seeing is not too impressive and government should take proactive step, revolutionary approach towards infrastructure development, towards capital expenditure in the budget. Because we have not seen that radical move, that is why the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, recently called for sack of 50 percent of the civil service.
What about the various Federal Government intervention funds for SME development in the country?
Another issue we do encounter in Nigeria is that government will have a very good policy, but to get to the right people is always a problem.
The fact that documentation prevented an average SME operator from accessing such funds is also a problem. Although, we as an organisation can assist the entrepreneurs to package their proposal for the fund, I can tell you that accessibility is still an issue
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