Charles Odii, the Director General of the Nigerian Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency, has pushed the Federal Government to give small and medium-sized businesses a quarter of all contracts.
He explained that this is so because SMEs employ over 60 million people and make up roughly 50% of the nation’s GDP.
Speaking with journalists on Wednesday in Abuja, the DG said, “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.”
Cisco and Atorj will provide SMEs with tech solutions.
Odii mentioned that the purpose of his last meeting with young legislators and small company owners was to gain a firsthand understanding of their issues, which primarily concerned money and costs.
He gave them his word that SMEDAN would lower production expenses for owners of small businesses.
“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.
