Isaac Edotimieyi, Resident Consultant of the Port Harcourt-based Entrepreneurial Development Initiative after a workshop in Lagos spoke to SEMIU OKANLAWON on what micro economic sector means to Nigeria�s stable polity
What is the purpose of this workshop? The workshop is economic budget literacy project funded by the USAID and Management System International. It is to create awareness in the Nigerian budget process. It is to educate people especially those in the micro business sector.
But do you think the government has been concerned enough about developing the micro-business sector as a way of stabilising the economy? Actually, the government has made some deliberate efforts to improve the small and medium enterprises sector with the establishment of SMEDAN and some other minor enterprises, there is also the micro-businesses such as the hawkers, the petty traders that are not adequately represented. The essence of the whole thing is to ensure that government has a wider representation for even the micro-entrepreneurs because they are the wheels of the economy. A greater percentage of the self-employed people are in the micro-sector. Government is trying with regards to the small medium enterprises but the agitation is that they should extend it to the micro-entrepreneurs.
Poor attention to this sub-sector of the economy is said to have direct impact on the politics of the country, how is this so? A lot of Nigerians are unemployed and a hungry man is an angry man. It is only when we have a stable economy that we have a stable polity. If people who are unemployed at the grass-root are taken care of in terms of establishing their own enterprises, we will have a reduced number of unemployed people. Inevitably, it will have its effect on the politics of the country because people will be better informed. They will be able to contribute to the process of governance and they will be more empowered to ask questions from their elected representatives and the problem of money politics where people who only have money and not really the true choices of the electorate are those that have access to the corridors of power. There will be less of agitation against unemployment and all that. A stable economy is crucial to stable polity.
What, in your assessment, have been this government�s major achievements as far as growing the economy is concerned? Well, the government has deliberately initiated the NEEDS document which is aimed at development of private enterprises that will also go to the micro level. Government is also encouraging private entrepreneurship and that includes both the micro-sector. If the NEEDS�s document is wholly implemented, it may turn out to be its major breakthrough in the country economic growth.
