Vice President, Kashim Shettima has commended Access Bank for offering N30 billion discounted loans to 700,000 Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in support of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration’s agenda for job creation and the growth of the MSME space. 
 
Shettima, who made the commendation, last Friday, at a meeting with MSME stakeholders comprising key actors from the public and private sectors, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, added that the Access Bank loan scheme would commence soon. 
 
“Every challenge, every problem is pregnant with opportunities for value addition and for repositioning of the society. I just met with the management of Access Bank. We had extensive discussions and they have offered to provide a N30 billion support to MSMEs focusing mostly on the youth and women as target beneficiaries. They are going to give these loans at 15 per cent interest rate,” the vice president announced.  

He had earlier, in his office, met with a delegation from Access Bank led by its Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Roosevelt Ogbonna. 
 
Shettima acknowledged that though there were daunting challenges, Nigeria has the talents to overcome some of them, stressing that, “in this room are the people that can bring about the changes we seek, be it in the agricultural value chain, the digital value chain and the manufacturing value chain.” 
 
He urged the stakeholders to unite in order to overcome the common challenges confronting the country, noting that Nigeria is blessed with the human resources to address the projected global talent deficit. 
  
“We can make this country work; with proper planning, zeal, commitment and leadership, this country can be repositioned. We have the platform to re-engineer this nation. The caliber of people present here today has rekindled my hope in the Nigerian dream,” he noted. 
 
Yielding to the request of the stakeholders for the inauguration of the National Council on MSMEs, the Vice President directed the Special Adviser to the President on National Economic Council (NEC) to kick-start the processes for the inauguration of the Council and the sensitisation of state governors to its functions. 
 
Earlier, the Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Mr. Charles Odii, on behalf of the stakeholders, thanked the vice president for his leadership and zeal to ensure the transformation of the MSMEs space in Nigeria. 
 

According to him, the stakeholders were keenly following the activities as well as interest shown by Shettima in issues confronting MSMEs.He gave assurances that the stakeholders were “ready, willing and committed to aligning to the vision of the Tinubu administration in the sector.” 
 
He requested the vice president to pick a suitable date to inaugurate the National Council on MSMEs as part of a broad plan to galvanise robust support for the space. 
 
In separate remarks, the chief executives of the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Industrial Training Fund (ITF), the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) and National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), spoke about their organisations’ contributions to the growth of the MSMEs sector and the administration’s job creation agenda. 
 
They reassured the vice president of their unwavering commitment and support, particularly in ensuring the actualisation of the Tinubu administration’s economic diversification objectives. 
 
The stakeholders were led to the meeting by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation and MSMEs, Mr. Temitola Adekunle-Johnson.