Group urges Buhari to make SMEs economic priority

 A micro economic empow­erment group under the auspices of “Say Yes To My Needs”, has appealed to Presi­dent Muhammadu Buhari to give priority to Small and Medium En­terprises, SMEs, in his economic policy.

The team is hopeful that such economic policy would take care of the needs of Nigerians to be self-employed and self-reliant.
The group made the call at the weekend, in Abuja, while giving out cheques to deserving benefi­ciaries as loans, to empower their small and medium scale busi­nesses.
Director General, DG, of the organisation, Francis Pember, while speaking during the presen­tation, said that his organisation has already built a database of over 35, 000 people across the na­tion, who have continued to ben­efit from the Say Yes To My Needs financial schemes, to alleviate their poverty.
He said that individual ben­eficiaries were receiving up to a hundred thousand naira, while a group of 10 or cooperative societ­ies were getting from one million naira and above as loan to help their small scale businesses.
Pember said that while the loans were given by a Micro Fi­nance Bank, MFB, to the benefi­ciaries, his organisation bore the burden of paying off the interests on the loans to help members.
He said that the huge number of people that visited his organ­isation on daily basis for help was an indication that several Nige­rians were wallowing in abject povety and needed to be helped by government.
The DG called on the federal government to take off this huge task off his organisation’s back by saying yes to the needs of Ni­gerians in order to change their lives.
Equally, he said that his organ­isation was helping indigent per­sons to go back to school through its scholarship programme.
The sum of one hundred thou­sand naira was paid to a school been part of the outstanding fees of 10 pupils under scholarship in the school.

Source:  NationalMirror