German Agency, GIZ Assesses 480,000 MSMEs for Intervention in Nigeria

James Sowole in Abeokuta

A German Economic and Development Agency, GIZ, has identified and assessed 480,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in five states and Federal Capital Territories of Nigeria for intervention in key areas that will enhance their business operations.

The intervention, was being implemented under the agency’s Sustalnable and lnclusive Economic Development for Decent Enmployment in Nigeria (SEDIN) and working with the relevant government agencies, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in improving the employment and income situation of MSMEs in the country.
The Head of Component Business Environment Reform, Investment and Infrastructure, Mr. Akinropo Omoware, disclosed efforts of the organisation aimed at improving MSMEs operations in Nigeria.

Omoware spoke in Abeokuta, Ogun State at a Stakeholders Forum on Indutrial Clusters Development themed “Towards Building Sustainable Infrastructure, Fostering Green Industries and Responsible Production in Nigeria.”
According to Omoware, the 480,000 MSMEs in 60 identified clusters, were located in Ogun, Edo, Plateau, Niger, Lagos and FCT.
To ensure access to sustainable infrastructure in its programme states, Omoware said SEDIN assessed selected business clusters, in three key areas, which include Environmental Social Governance (ESG) framework; Cluster Management Capacity; and Business Capacity.

Omoware said: “Before now, our approach in ZEDIN, has been around value chain development but under the current phase, which we just started last year, but reaching full implementation this year, we are moving towards supporting industrial clusters, business clusters, market and digital hubs.
His words: “What we are basically going to be doing is how we can support MSMEs in these clusters to be more competitive so that they can be more sustainable.

“At the moment, we have about 60 clusters that we have identified, we have profiled them and done assessment to understand their critical challenges, i.e challenges of MSMEs in these clusters and these clusters are spread in five states and FCT making about six states at present.
“We have currently about 48,000 MSMEs in these clusters that we will be working with.
“In these clusters, we are looking critically at four key areas and the bigger one is to be able to address infrastructure challenges in these areas and also service challenges.

“We are also looking at how to integrate the green areas into these clusters. But beyond that we are looking at issues surrounding business enabling environment and investment, we are looking at entrepreneurship support and we are looking at issues around new markets and issues surrounding access to finance.

“Like I said, the bigger one is the infrastrutural issues around these clusters.”

The Head of Component also stated that GIZ under its SEDIN programme, was also looking at how to create jobs by the MSMEs in the these identified clusters

“Our process is to work with government and also to work with the private sector.

“Private sector is more important because they are the one that create jobs. Government must understand what private sector needs to create jobs.

“When you are dealing with policies, government must understand how those policies affect the ability of the private sector to create jobs.

“If businesses are shutting down, there is no way you expect jobs to be created otherwise jobs will be lost. Government and Private sectors must work together and for every policy we must look at what is the impact of this on the private sector, MSMEs and big companies to be able to create jobs.

“When we are talking about tax, government must know how it affects them. When you are talking about energy, fuel, you must understand how does it affect them. There must be a way for them to work together to finding a solution.

“Government must have reasons for implementing one policy or the other, but at the end of the day, we must look at how to juxtapose that with how does it affect our ability to create jobs in this economy.

“This economy needs jobs. We are turning out thousands from universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and other institutions and everywhere on daily basis and without thinking of where they are they going. If we don’t address that, we will have an economy that will not be productive.

“At the moment we are still import dependent. We must think of how do we move from import dependent to export dependent and to able to produce what we need in this country and look at how we move forward to how to export.

“We need to see how this economy gives individuals and private sector opportunities to create something out of none and it is then that we can sustain this economy and grow to where we want to grow into.

“A major challenge in the clusters we are working with is energy and we are looking at how best can we get energy to the clusters.

“Good enough, we have a bit decentralised energy market in Nigeria and that allows us to do a lot with the state in being able to provide new energy means to the cluster.

“We are looking at integrating the renewable into energy mix, green energy, clean energy.

“There are other challenges like issue around the road infrastructure, issues around waste management, issues around access to internet broadband access, internet facilities and other issues.

“We have seen few issues that will be addressed to make them stronger and make them to be able to produce what people need not only for Nigeria but for export market.”

Addressing the stakeholders, the State Commissioner, Ministry of Industry,Trade, Investment, Mr Adebola Sofela, said Ogun State Government,  was not resting on its oars in order to ensure the industrialisation of the state at large.

Sofela, represented by the Director Industrial Promotion in the ministry, Mr. Kayode Akintonmide, commended the GIZ for several programmes in the state.

He said the government has put in place several programmes and initiatives aimed at industrialising the state and to promote investments.

He said: “The state government is working hard on these several projects and initiatives. The state government has several financial portfolios put in place for our businesses.

“We have the Ogun Cares, which is a grant that is currently ongoing. We have what we called Owonise Dapo, newly flagged off and it is under the Ministry of Community Development and Cooperatives and we have Okowo Dapo which resides in the Ministry of Women Affairs.

“We have Ogun State Government /Bank of Industry MSME partnership Funding Scheme for small businesses which resides in the Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment.

“Currently, the State Government is working on a N2biliion funding scheme for our MSMEs. One billion of this is meant to be for grant while one billion naira is for loan at very low interest rate.

 “Again, the state government has land acquisition scheme for small businesses that is coming up at Ijebu Isiwo.

“The government is doing all within its power to make sure that this is kickstarted as soon as possible and the ground breaking ceremony will take place soonest.

“All these are part of the initiatives but which our people do not know that they have the opportunities of benefiting from.

“Again, at our ministry, we have several initiatives like stakeholders’ engagement meeting that we hold regularly.  Basically, what this one does is to jointly review the ever-evolving issues associated with small businesses because of their uniqueness and are relative.”