By SALISU SANI-IDRIS

The Federal Government on Friday inaugurated the National Council on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to ease ways of doing small businesses across the country.

Mr Charles Odii, Director-General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), made this known while briefing newsmen at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the council was inaugurated by Vice President Kashim Shettima.

“What we had inside was the inauguration of the National Council on MSMEs. The council is saddle with the responsibility to for ease of doing business for small business across the country.

“The council will cascade to the difference states and at the state levels all state governors are the Heads and Chairmen of this council.

“And we as SMEDAN, we will be the secretariat and our job basically is to make sure that this council runs, small businesses can come and get everything they needs to starts, grow and scale their businesses.”

Odii said that Shettima has directed the D-G of SMEDAN and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MSMEs and Job Creation, Office of the Vice President to give him progress report of the council every two weeks.

“The Vice President has charged myself, Temitola Adekunle-Johnson, Senior Special Assistant to the President on MSMEs and Job Creation to come back to him every two weeks to give him a report on how we are creating jobs.

“And how we are easing the operation of small businesses across Nigeria and more importantly how we are alleviating poverty and enhancing the livelihood of Nigerians across the country.”

The D-G said that SMEDAN would write to all the states governors to intimate them about the council’s operation following it inauguration.

“We lost three million small businesses from our last statistics and this lost of small businesses borders around insecurity, access to finance, climate and global competitiveness for small businesses.

“So, in terms of access to finance, we have announced a N5 billion nine per cent no collateral loan for small businesses across the country in partnership with the Sterling Bank.

“We got N30 billion from Access Bank as well another fund for the youth and women.

“And what we are trying to do is to make these funds available small businesses across different sub-sectors so that they can actually access these funds to buy equipment that they need to create conducive working capital and environment.”

On his part, Adekunle-Johnson said the inauguration of the council further demonstrated the commitment of President Bola Tinubu’s administration to create an enabling environment for small businesses to thrived.

“This shows the body language of Mr President. Nigeria is ready for business., small businesses especially. President Tinubu wants to create an environment where these small businesses thrive on a daily basis without issues.”

Also, Mr Dele Oye, National President, Nigeria Association of Chambers of Commerce, commended the Vice-President Shettima for his commitment to the development of MSMEs.

“We are also very happy with the way the Vice President has taken the matter that we wants reports every two weeks. So, it gives us a platform for immediate access to government policies and interventions.

“We are quite happy, and we are going to work closely and also be providing our own data to show if actually the policies are actually changing the ecosystem.” (NAN)

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