KADUNA—The Governor of Kaduna State, Alh. Ahmed Makarfi, has called for a federal government policy to guarantee repatriated monies by Nigerians who have funds abroad as a means of attracting them to bring the money home and invest in the Nigerian economy.
Speaking at the opening of the first National Conference of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) stakeholders in Kaduna, yesterday, he said that unless Nigerians who had money abroad repatriated them and invest in the Nigerian economy, no effort of the federal government to attract foreign investors would yield fruits.
According to him, foreign investors and multilateral institutions to whom the federal government had been appealing for foreign investment in the country were fully aware of how much money Nigerians had abroad and would therefore, not be convinced by any appeal if they knew that Nigerians themselves were not moving their funds home to invest in their own country’s economy.
Nigerians are said to have as much as over $107 billion stashed away in foreign banks. That amount is almost four times over the $32 billion foreign debt owed by the nation.
Aikarfi’s words: "When we talk of availability of credit for SMEs, I believe government should evolve a policy of attracting the inflow of foreign investment through the repatriation of monies or investments that Nigerians have abroad. "The Asian Tigers did the same with guarantee and with repatriation, there were investments and their economies boomed. Except we are able to formulate a policy which will ensure and guarantee people to undertake this repatriation, we will be going cap in hand to the IMF , the World Bank and Direct Foreign Investors and they know how much money is there that could be repatriated.
"So, I think it is important to look at this area and see what can be done within a period of time to attract money abroad."
The governor also charged operators in the SMEs sub-sector to avoid wasting the credit facilities granted them either by government agencies or banks in such projects as taking chieftaincy titles and marrying many more wives rather than investing in the projects for which such credit were given.
Earlier, the Director-General (D-G) of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Mrs. Dupe Adelaja, said her administration would undertake a paradigm shift in the efforts towards the development of the sub-sector by concentrating on action rather than talking.
"Only two weeks ago, we inaugurated a strong, public-private sector committee to fashion out a policy blueprint for the SME sector. With the expertise and experience of those on that committee, we are optimistic that very soon, Nigeria will have a well-coordinated framework for actualizing the growth and development of her SMEs", she added.
She observed that until now, SMEs in Africa and in Nigeria, in particular, existed only in potentials with available statistics showing that the continent had the lowest of SMEs contribution to Gross National Products (GDP) across the globe.
According to her, the agency has just completed a survey of the SMEs from which she said the organization now has a pool of data on the critical success factors to be addressed in order to achieve a developed SME sector in the country. Mrs. Adelaja said that her team was already discussing with private sector operators and other stakeholders with a view to establishing sustainable Business Development Services Centres and Industrial Parks which would pool operators together in same locations.
Such parks, she said, would be run by private sector operators to ensure that even after the present administration, they would remain viable and continue to provide the necessary support for the SME in those clusters, where she said, both Standards Organisation of Nigeria and NAFDAC would locate their offices to simplify services delivery.
Eminent SME operator and development expert, Prince Lekan Fadina, in his Keynote Address pointed out that banks must play active role in the sub-sector for the necessary objectives of the Small and Medium Enterprises Equity Scheme (SMEIES) jointly introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Bankers Committee to be realized.
Many operators, he observed, were lacking in necessary management skill such that even with the best of intentions, many of their businesses ran aground and therefore required the expertise of other equity holders to shore up their operations.
He also called for the review of federal government industrial policies that were discriminatory against SMEs in favour of large scale industries while urging SMEs operators to also consider mergers, instead of the usual "I can do my business alone" syndrome in the country.
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