The Small and Medium Enterprise Develop mentAgency (SMEDAN) yesterday accused the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of excluding its members from benefiting from the N220billion for Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). It said its exclusion was not the right thing to do.
SMEDAN Director-General, Dikko Umaru Radda, who spoke during an interactive session with reporters in Abuja, said the major partners of these funds are CBN and financial institutions.
Radda said: “We feel excluded from this fund and it is not right; we tried getting back to CBN by telling them this is our constituency, we know how these MSMEs feel, we know their challenges, it is not just throwing money at them, they will need to be guided and made to know that they are monitored. The money has to be used for the purpose in which it is being given to them.
“In our normal operation, we do what we call business development service. Post-training support, which means we monitor, we follow up this MSMEs to make sure that they run their business the way it should be run, achieve the targets and return back any money if it is a loan.
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“Access to affordable finance is a major challenge to the operation and sustainability of MSMEs in Nigeria, there is also need for greater investment in MSMEs in developing countries. This is crucial for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
“SMEDAN is raising awareness about the role of MSMEs in achieving the 2030 agenda for sustainable development; feed into the global debate on financing for development and provide though leadership and practical tools that will lead to greater investment in small businesses on how to bridge gaps in finance, knowledge and skills.”
He added that SMEDAN engages in a wide range of programmes aimed at promoting the development of the MSMEs subsector in the country by generating and providing information, delivering business development service which includes capacity building mentoring, counseling and advisory services. It also supports the development of clusters, enterprise networking, under taking public advocacy policy on behalf of MSMEs and facilitating access of MSMEs to critical resources such as finance, workspace, technology and others.
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