SMIEIS: Ibori Tasks Banks, OPS
Finance
By Amarachukwu Ona
The Governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori has challenged banks to cooperate with the Organised Private Sector (OPS) so as to encourage the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and local industries.
Ibori who made this call in Asaba at the recently held two-day Delta State Economic and Investment Forum, attributed the failure to realise the objectives of Small and Medium Industries Equities Investment Schemes (SMIEIS) to poor handling by banks staff and inability of the potential SMEs operators to handle the required documentation of the scheme.
He maintained that operators of SMEs and local industrialists are obstructed by factors such as high lending rates, stringent conditionalities and poor handling of lending schemes by the financial institutions.
"Let me use this forum to challenge banks on the need to foster greater cooperation with OPS to encourage the growth of SMEs and local industries, which constitute the bedrock of the economy of any nation", he said.
Ibori noted that Delta State government had earlier entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Oceanic Bank International Limited, Standard Trust Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Limited and the embattled Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria (SGBN).
The MOU, he said was to encourage entrepreneurship and growth of the manufacturing sector of Delta State.
He, therefore urged other financial institutions to emulate what the above listed banks have done, not only to Delta State, but also to other states of the federation.
He argued that the cooperation will go a long way in creating wealth and jobs, and reduce unemployment among others in the state, thereby boosting the growth and development of our nation.
Noting that the SMIEIS fund currently stood at about N22 billion, Ibori said that "it is a huge reserve of investible funds, which can be rolled over in form of equity participation".
He added that Delta State government considered the scheme a very attractive opportunity waiting to be exploited for the development of the economy.
"We consider this a very attractive opportunity waiting to be exploited for the development of our economy.
"It is our belief that Delta State can benefit from the scheme by properly focusing its strategies to development to go in the same line with the objectives of the SMIEIS", he said.
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