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The inability of the small-scale businesses to provide massive jobs has been hinged on absence of enabling environment.
The Chairman of the National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), Lagos Island Chapter, Femi Kuti-George, stated this recently at the launch of the chapter in Lagos.
He argued that NASSI is capable of providing employment to unemployed youths only if government would provide enabling environment for small business to grow.
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Kuti-George said further submitted that the Association has the capacity to reduce poverty and create employment opportunities for the teeming graduates churned out yearly by several academic institutions.
“In spite of our enormous resources, Nigeria has no business in poverty, if we do the right thing”, he said.
He argued that Nigeria cannot develop if government continue to pay lip service to science and technology from which the small scale industrialist draw strength.
He explained that the purpose of the launching of the association was to establish contact with government, its institutions and other non-governmental organisations for the advancement and promotion of the small industries.
In his speech, the Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Lagos State, Babatunde Durosimi, said small businesses are the engine room of the economy, stressing that one of the major challenges facing the small business is lack of fund.
He restated the State’s commitment to creating enabling environment and access to fund to boost small business.
“We intend to work with small business owners in order to absorb graduates who are unemployed as internship. Government would be paying them monthly stipend. Youths need to be employable before you can become entrepreneurs.
“We are aware that it is the activities of the small scale industrialists that sustain every economy. That is why I have come here today to chart the way forward to move SMEs forward”, Durosimi said.
