Osinbajo seeks synergy among MSMEs, donor agencies

 Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday, said opportunities to access funds by the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) abound but for lack of necessary information and linkage.
The Vice President spoke in Abuja at the 2015 National MSMEs Summit with the theme “Entrepreneurship for National Development: The Place of MSMEs in the Economy under the Change Agenda.’’

He suggested an effective monitoring and evaluation mechanism for MSME funds to address the existing gaps and enable the economy to grow.
He said: “We need a very effective monitoring and evaluation so that we can then address where exactly the gaps and the shortfalls are.

 “But today, it is evident that the programmes are there; it is evident that the resources are there; it is also evident that the entrepreneurs are there; those who want to get engaged are there.
“But we need to make that very important link between the two.’’
According to him, it was either that there was no connection or that it was difficult for the entrepreneurs to access them.
Osinbajo said part of the reasons for the difficulty was because officials were not actually required to account for persons that were receiving the funds.
His words: “I think it is very important going forward and for all those in the public sector to sit together and work out a way by which we are able to actually measure all the deliverables in this sector.
“For instance, we know we are supposed to fund a certain number of people; who are these people; can we verify them; how much are they getting?
“In what ways are their performances measurable and how do we measure their performances?’’
Osinbajo noted accordingly, that effective coordination among agencies was needed to remove the overlaps and streamline all the different interventions in other to avoid wastes.
He advised that efforts be made to correct the ease of doing business index which makes Nigeria one of the worst places to do business.
That, according to him, would require a determination on the part of the people to ensure a cleanup of the environment with a view to making things work.
Osinbajo said it was the determination of the Buhari administration to give every Nigerian the fair chance to do business by making it easy to get business permits following due process.
Minister of State for Trade, Industry and Investment, Hajia Aisha Abubakar, in her remarks said the summit was aimed at removing all the bottlenecks to investments.
She said Nigeria was blessed with no fewer than 44 solid minerals in sufficient quantity, adding that there was the need to harness them to stem the tide of poverty and joblessness bedeviling the youth population.
She said the informal sector contributed about 70 per cent to the national economy but was faced with numerous challenges such as access to finance, markets and information, inadequate infrastructure, high cost of doing business, and lack of business development skills.
Director-General, SME Development Agency of Nigeria, Alhaji Bature Masari, advocated the establishment of an MMSE bank to position the enterprises for empowerment and job creation.
Masari said that the reality of the dwindling oil revenue called for diversification of the economy which could be propelled by the MMSE operators.
The Director General said statistics showed that in 2010, there were 17.3 million MSMEs employing about 32.4 million and contributing 46 percent to the GDP.
According to him, another survey in 2014, showed that MSMEs grew to 32 million employing 59 million, representing 84.2 per cent of the labour force, contributing 48 per cent to GDP and 7.2 per cent of export, saying that deliberate efforts should be made to support the sector.

Source: http://dailytimes.com.ng