Daily Independent Online.
*
Wednesday, July 21, 2004.
Obasanjo identifies obstacles to
SMEs growth
By ’Gbenga
Abiodun
State
House ,
Abuja
In a desperate move
to reposition Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) as the engine of growth
of the nation’s economy, President Olusegun Obasanjo Tuesday identified
that perennial neglect of the sector by successive administrations in the
country is responsible for the current monolithic economy.
He stated that the
SMEs have consistently failed in the past due to the failure of government to
“build the necessary institutions to expand, strengthen and secure the
sub-sector” for performance.
While declaring
open the 15th International Conference on Promoting Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMEs) for global competitiveness at the international conference
centre, Abuja, the president said he does not like the idea of referring to the
SMEs as the “informal sector”.
According to him,
this nomenclature engendered the neglect with which successive governments have
treated the sector. Obasanjo also
told the audience made up of conference participants and exhibitors from all
parts of Africa, India, Asia, America and Europe that scarcity of loanable
funds has been another major obstacle that has militated against industrial
development in Nigeria.
The president
said because the sector was
erroneously seen as informal, “government virtually neglected the sector
and it was given no encouragement. Even agriculture that involved over 70 per
cent of our population was classified by the so-called experts into “cash”
and “food” crops; the former to be encouraged and the later to be
ignored or neglected. We all know that you have to see your so-called
“food” crops to get cash,” the president explained.
He, however,
affirmed that his administration
has taken a different posture on the SMEs which he said are now “as
formal and as the giants of other sectors,” adding that government has
evolved appropriate policy and industrial blueprint to enhance the development
of this very important sub-sector of the economy.
“Some major
instruments for devolving economic development to the grassroots are the
Industrial Development Centres
equipped with basic machinery to enhance their capacity to deliver the
requisite technical support to SMEs at grassroots level. In addition,
government has established the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Development
Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to promote the speedy growth of SMEs in
Nigeria,” President Obasanjo expounded.
