SMEDAN laments poor funding of organisation

As Etisalat unveils online portal for SMEs
The Director-General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Dr. Dikko Umaru Radda, has lamented the poor state of funding of government agencies, stating that there is need for better coordination for maximum impact.

Radda said the major thing government needed to do was to create a kind of coordination among its agencies that would channel the focus of the government towards the same direction for economic growth.

Radda, who decried the low awareness of its agency, said this was associated with lack of proper funding. “SMEDAN is not properly funded unlike other agencies across the world. For instance, an agency like ours in Brazil, had a budget of $1.8 billion while in Nigeria, for our 13 years of existence, which SMEDAN was created, our budget was only $20 million. How do you expect such agency to perform effectively, knowing fully well that small medium entreprises comprises of 90 per cent of every household in the country, he queried.

Speaking at the launch of an initiative by Etisalat targeted towards the growth of Small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) on Wednesday, Radda said government needed the funding of SMEs to achieve its diversification goals.

“The effort of the government to diversify the economy can not just be on speeches, the government must do something to make all revolution all revolution in micro entrepreneurship in the country.

“We are strategizing. We had a retreat recently where a lot of ideas were generated and those ideas were passed to the federal government for approval. With the approval, we would be in the process of formalising micro businesses in the nation, he said.

However, the initiative titled; ‘SME Arena’, a social and e-Commerce platform, is targeted at SMEs, enterprises to converge, network, collaborate, showcase their products and interact with customers and business partners on the digital space, thereby enhancing efficiency, productivity and profit optimisation.

Radda described the initiative has an integral part of SMEs tailored at equipping potential entreprenuers with the requisite knowledge and practical skills needed to enhance their competitiveness in the market place.

He explained that the importance of the initiative would provide an avenue for interaction between businesses in the country and it would have a platform with meaningful development in terms of growth and profit.

He charged other blue chip companies to emulate the initiative, adding that the partnership with SMEs would ensure a scale-ups that would enhance the much-needed capacity in building businesses according to international best practices.

In his remarks, Chief Executive Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Matthew Willsher said, the telecommunication’s commitment to the development and growth of small and growing businesses in Nigeria led us to create several platforms that enable budding entrepreneurs to strive.

“The market place is an arena of sorts, and in today’s world, trade goes on at a fast pace. This is why we strongly believe that a platform such as the SME Arena is important in the improvement and growth of small and growing businesses,” he said.