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Osinbanjo leads 25 agencies to engage 1500 MSMEs in Delta

By Sony Neme, Asaba
06 November 2019   |   4:49 am
Vice President Yemi Osibanjo is leading 25 agencies to the two-day business clinic for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) holding today and tomorrow in Asaba, Delta State with over 1,500 participants.

Vice President Yemi Osibanjo is leading 25 agencies to the two-day business clinic for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) holding today and tomorrow in Asaba, Delta State with over 1,500 participants.

The Chief Economic Adviser to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Mr. Kingsley Emu, who dropped the hint yesterday during a press briefing in Asaba, said the agencies include those involved in facilitating the ease of doing business and development finance institutions such as Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Bank of Industry (BoI) with an array of products on display.

According to Emu, “we hear loads of money being voted by development finance institutions for MSMEs but most of them can’t run down. So, the challenges are what we believe the vice president and his team should be able to address.”

He added that over 95 per cent of businesses in Nigeria were MSMEs, “so the clinic has become imperative to significantly address challenges of access to finance and institutions for the budding entrepreneurs. Our expectation is that his (Osinbajo) presence will match the expectations of MSMEs especially as it requires funding, certification, accountability and documentation.”

Emu went on: “We believe that some waivers will be granted. We believe that some mileages will be achieved. Access to the institutions and finance is a challenge, and with them being here for two days, it will be addressed. The second one is the collateral, the requirement for draw down of some of the facilities.

“Some of the MSMEs don’t have them, they are just start-offs. So, they should be needing funds that will sustain their start offs. It is not recurrent when you spend a lot of money to grow MSMEs to start up their businesses. The reason being that it is a capital venture.

“If each state is giving one billion naira to the chambers of commerce to be drawn directly by beneficiaries at a single-digit interest rate without collateral, we will hold the chambers responsible even if we end up losing those money without paying back. I can tell you that we would have achieved a lot of mileage in the process. We truly expect that we will be achieving result.”

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