I Have Seen The Future Of Nigeria’s Economy; It’s In MSMEs – Osinbajo
“The business of making our country truly great is not just the business of government. Government is transient, it passes away but it is the business of every one of us.’’
“I can assure you that whatever it takes to make our country truly where it should be in the comity of nations in Africa and anywhere in the world, we will give it.’’
Remarks By The acting President Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria, His Excellency, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, GCON, At The Launch Of The MSMEs Clinics In The FCT Held At The Eagles Square, Abuja On Thursday JULY 20, 2017
Protocols
This has been a very exciting afternoon for me because I have seen the future of the economy of our country and that future lies in the small and medium scale enterprises, many of who are here today advertising their products.
Just today I have come across BIMKAF Palace who produces coconut oil, flour, ginger powder, carrot oil and so on, Cura Foods and Disposables, Euphrates Renewable Enterprises, Bob-ella Décor & Event Management, Nwamaka Ventures and several other MSMEs. The list is far too long to go on mentioning them.
I want to say that all of the businesses we have seen here today, many of them are young men and women who believe in this country and who are using Nigerian products, Nigerian crafted machines in many cases, fabricated and who are producing incredible things with what they have.
A lot of the capital they have is from several of the micro finance businesses that are working with them.
I want to say that the future of our country is in small businesses, medium size businesses doing great things, and that is what we are seeing here today.
But it is not enough for these businesses to produce and manufacture and to work hard as they are doing, it is our business as government to do our part.
That is exactly why we have this MSME Clinics, the reason why we decided to have this clinics in the different states where we have held them so far and now in Abuja, is because we believe that government has a key role to play in creating an environment for businesses to prosper and for businesses to make good.
This is exactly why we are here, the idea came out of conversations I had with Mr. President about how we could develop small businesses quickly.
We recognise that one of the chief problems that small businesses have is with regulatory agencies; being able to access regulatory agencies and get quick and efficient service from regulatory agencies.
Secondly, funding is also an important constraint for many of these small businesses.
So we thought that it would be wise to actually take these regulatory agencies to the small businesses rather than wait for the small businesses to come to the regulatory agencies.
This interaction can sensitize the regulatory agencies themselves to the problems of small and medium scale enterprises.
What we have seen so far is that there has been tremendous improvement in the way that the regulatory agencies respond to small and medium enterprises.
So what we have done for example, is that we have brought NAFDAC which of course as you know is an important agency in the process of approvals for products.
We brought NAFDAC, SON and even the CAC, that is the Corporate Affairs Commission. We brought the
