By Dipo Olowookere
Nigeria’s Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, has shed more light on the main reason Federal Government inaugurated the MSMES Clinics.
Speaking at an event held last week in Katsina, Mr Osinbajo noted that the initiative was to provide a platform for small businesses “to meet with the industry regulators, to talk to them and to hear their problems.”
The Acting President averred that the Federal Government’s newly launched Economic Recovery & Growth Plan (EGRP) places high premium on the nation’s capacity to grow its export potentials rather than continue on the unsustainable path of total dependence on import.
Mr Osinbajo was in Katsina on Thursday to launch the state’s MSMEs Clinic and the event was attended by several small scale business owners, industry and stakeholders across the public and private sectors involved in developing the micro, small and medium scale enterprises in the country.
According to him, the main focus of the plan is to develop “the capacity of Nigerians to do everything that we need internally; to become a net exporter of the various things that we are importing today.”
He explained further that the idea of the MSMEs clinics, which he has personally attended for the fourth time now, is the Buhari administration’s effort to close the gap between MSMEs and relevant FG regulatory agencies like NAFDAC, CAC, SON, BOI, FIRS and others and ensure that those agencies become facilitators of businesses not obstacles to business development.
Prof Osinbajo, who declared the MSMEs Clinic open, was accompanied to Katsina by the Minister of State for Aviation, Mr Hadi Sirika; Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Hajia Aisha Abubakar; Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr Babatunde Fowler; and Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Mr Babafemi Ojudu.
