Minister urges OPS to provide support for informal sector

The Minister for Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, has identified non-availability of resources and poor marketing skills as the major ills militating against the Nigerian Informal sector growth, urging the Organised Private Sector (OPS) to provide advertising support for the industry.

The informal sector is a sector, which encompasses all jobs which are not recognised as normal income sources, and on which taxes are not paid. It sets the foundation for promoting the evolution of large firms that ultimately dominate the formal sector.

The Minister, while addressing participants during the KPMG Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of companies’ forum held in Lagos on Tuesday, stressed the need to stimulate the sector for growth, noting that the sector plays a very important role in the development of the economies of nation.

He lamented that limited access to capital and lack of skills are major constraints for operators working in the informal sector.

He explained that operators in the sector should be provided with the needed finance and advertising support to grow their businesses to enable the economy achieve the required production potentials.

“The informal sector is an area that we want to do as much as possible to support. Made in Nigeria campaign is actually meant to stimulate the informal sector. I will encourage you to patronise some of these our craft people.

“The way to support the informal sector is to give them incentive and we do have some good craftsmen. I was talking to some craft men at Aba and I understand that they make some high-quality shoe. The problem with these small informal sectors is that they do not have marketing skills or resources.

“Many of them do not have financing or advertising support and so on, may be some of you on the sideline of whatever business you are doing try and see if you can look for some investors of the informal sector who are producing like shoes and get them to produce. Then you support and promote them and provide advertising support for them.

“One thing with the informal sector is that they will start two good things and on the third one, the quality will drop. There are many things we can do for them. In Italy, a lot of production is made on small scale but you have some bigger company who stand behind them.

“I think that an arrangement like that could help and will be a source of making a lot of money for companies that go into that and I think is an opportunity to support the small companies,” the minister added.