The Small and Medium Scale enterprises and businessmen in Nigeria have called on banks and other microfinance organizations to assist them in growing their businesses. In a statement at a meeting held at the palace of the Ezeigbo of Mushin, HRH Eze (Dr) John Chukwudi Nwosu by the group in Lagos, they emphasized that the sector has been neglected despite all the hype of availability of funds to assist them.

Speaking at the occasion, the president of the Market Leaders Association of Nigeria, Deacon C.F.C. Obih reiterated that over the years, small and medium scale enterprises are believed to be catalysts for wealth creation and economic development in Nigeria. SME is also assumed to play the role of employment generation, facilitator of economic recovery and poverty eradication. However, this sector has being experiencing retarded growth due to many factors which include lack of easy access to funding/credit which can be traced to reluctance of banks to extend credit to them owing to poor and inadequate documentation of business proposals, lack of appropriate and adequate collateral, high cost of administration and management of small loans as well as high interest rates.

According to him, “We have approached banks individually and collectively to assist us with loans but most of us are usually disqualified due to lack of knowledge of the process. Moreover, banks do not have enough personnel to train all SMEs on the rudiments. That is why we have gathered ourselves together on the platform of a summit to be educated on how we can assess loans to improve on our businesses. Unfortunately, most banks are still not supportive but we are optimistic in helping ourselves to grow our business and Nigerian economy.”

Lending to his voice, the Chief Executive Officer of Reli Communications Limited, Mr. Emma Anyagwa revealed that this sector has the most need for financial loans to boost their businesses. He emphasized that they also need to be educated on the process of obtaining such loans. Unfortunately, the banks are not helping much to enlighten them on how to grow their businesses perhaps due to inadequate human capacity. “The Lagos Business Empowerment Summit coming up in July 4, 2013 at the Sports Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium is designed to bridge the gap. This inaugural edition will bring together over 5000 small and medium scale traders and dealers on automobile, telecommunications, information technology, agriculture, food and beverages, building materials and household wares sectors in an interactive business forum with their product and service providers. By doing this, we hope to resolve those challenges which affects them from developing capacity to realizing their full potentials as well as the prospect for improvement and development for employment generation, wealth creation and economic growth,” he stated.

At the end of the summit, participants are expected to improve on their businesses with strengthened commitment to economic reform which in turn would offer a turning point in facilitating wealth creation and economic development. We therefore call on banks, financial institutions and other sectors to come to the aid of this sector by supporting a programme such as this.

Emma Anyagwa

Project Coordinator/CEO, Reli Communications