By Ijendu Iheaka
November 8, 2016
The Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has said that Nigeria’s Small and Medium Scale Enterprises must be strengthened to bail the nation out of recession.
The Minister made the assertion on Tuesday at the 3rd Abia State Small and Medium Scale (SME) forum in Aba, Abia state’s commercial hub.
Ogbeh said that although the nation since the 1970s had created various opportunities to grow its SMEs, it was still fraught with low productivity, reduced economic contribution and high business failure.
He, therefore, called for local technological support, access to finance, training, open markets, adequate infrastructure, reduction of interest rates and trade liberalisation to grow the SMEs.
Ogbeh represented by the South East Regional Director in the ministry, Mr Chima Ibezim, thanked SMEDAN, Bank of Industry, other financial institutions, investors and agencies for contributing to the steady development of MSEs in Nigeria.
In his address, the Abia State Deputy Governor, Sir Ude Okochukwu, said that the State government had set in motion a process to eradicate multiple taxation in order to encourage growth of SMEs.
He said that at the completion of the process all business concerns in Abia would receive a maximum of two demand notices for fees; adding that his office should be alerted if it exceeds two.
Okochukwu said that a monitoring team had been constituted by the state government to search out persons defrauding Abia residents in the name of government to enable their arrest and prosecution.
In his contribution, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa called on business people in Abia state to collaborate with government to get what they needed to run their businesses.
He added that government alone could not give all they required to grow their businesses.
He said that unless government sees the problems of SMEs from the eyes of the businesses, it would be hard to solve their problems.
He stressed the need for constant interaction between business owners and government agents to solve their problems.
An Aba-based businessman, Chief John Udeagbala, urged the participants to join business associations in the city such as ACCIMA and MAN to benefit from collective fight for their rights and better business opportunities.
He said business owners must buy into the current plan by governments to grow SMEs by giving them loan facilities through government agencies.
He said that he utilised such opportunity in early 1970s to create four thriving companies today.
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