The Director General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, Charles Odii, has advised the Federal Government to award 25 per cent of its contracts to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
According to him, SMEs contribute about 50 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employ about 60 million people, hence the need for them to be empowered to do more.
He stated this during an interaction with journalists in Abuja.
“Government is the biggest spender; the biggest employer of labour. We want small businesses to benefit from contract awards.
“What that means, however, is that small businesses need to be well-equipped to be able to win government contracts.
“96% of businesses in Nigeria are small businesses; so it is only 4 per cent that are big,” Odii stated.
According to the DG, a meeting he held earlier with young legislators and small business owners was aimed at getting a first-hand view of their challenges which mostly bothered on cost and funding, and assured that SMEDAN would help small business owners reduce production costs.
“A lot of banks want to give funding, but they can’t give small businesses because they are not adequately structured to receive the funding.
“We shall help at least one million entrepreneurs to structure their businesses to become eligible for such funding,” he added.
