Senator Mukhail Adetokunbo Abiru of Lagos East has revealed plans by his administration to empower 1,000 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in his district with credit facilities up to the tune of N100 million.

He made this known at the Business Recovery Programme (BRP) which was partly facilitated by the Fate Foundation. BRP addressed pressing issues faced by entrepreneurs, empowering them with the strategic tools they need to scale their businesses.

At the conference, Adetokunbo said that the intervention to support these businesses with loans was timely, especially after the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world’s economy.

“MSMEs employ over 80 per cent of most economies and contribute greatly to the GDP of economies,” he noted. “In Nigeria alone, we have a higher amount of our business in the MSMEs segment.”

He continued: “However, we all are conversant on the issue of COVID-19, and its impact on all of our lives, and how it has affected businesses. If you factor that in with all the other problems that MSMEs face, like inadequate capital, issues around infrastructure, and some of the challenges in accessing capital in terms of interest on loans, then you will see there is a real need to rise to the occasion for entrepreneurs.”

Aside from loans that will be issued at a low interest of six per cent per annum, the senator also collaborated with various corporate agencies such as KPMG, and Deloitte to prepare various manuals to aid entrepreneurs to gain insight into various aspects of business that include financial management, marketing and communications, business law, tax, digital technology etc.

Similarly, each entrepreneur was offered the opportunity to speak with the different, onsite advisory board to proffer solutions during a master class session.

With the World Bank predicting demand for 600 million additional workforces by 2030, Adetokunbo is priming entrepreneurs to actively secure a better positioning ahead of that time to enable the proper assimilation of the workforce in Nigeria.

(Adopted from THISDAY)

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