This was disclosed by the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo who spoke through his Special Assistant on MSMEs, Tola Adekunle-Johnson at the NUJ Press Centre in Bauchi on Monday, saying that the MSMEs Clinics that is now going around major cities in the country was designed to give small businesses the opportunity to meet with the industry regulators, to talk to them and to hear their problems.
Yemi Osinbajo also said that upon the take-off of the shared production facilities, all that would be required of small business operators, who face challenges of funding the purchase of production equipment, was to pay a token to the government to rent the production facilities for the creation of their products as obtainable in some developed countries.
The Vice-President further said that following his tour of MSMEs clinics across 21 states of the country in the past 18 months and having interacted with over 303,000 MSME operators, it was discovered that the sector needs prompt government intervention.
He said that: “The Presidency has approved the establishment of shared facilities for MSMEs because as the clinics have gone so far, we have seen that there are some MSMEs, that do not have financial capabilities to run their businesses.”
He added that “A lot of MSMEs engage in different clusters but they don’t have money for the equipment to buy pieces of equipment for their clusters, so what we are trying to do as a government is to partner with interested states. Then, we, as the federal government, will come up with how to get the equipment or at least an average of five clusters per state.”
“So, if you say for instance you are operating a bottle water company, you can come into this building, pay a token and manufacture your pure water. The building would have been certified by National Agency for Drug and Food Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON),” he assured.