The Federal Government (FG), has injected N50 billion grants into small businesses across the country.
The federal government said the grants was for the beneficiaries to start and grow their businesses while they were equally trained.
The Director General, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Charles Odii, disclosed that the aim was to build capacity of business owners for them to be self-reliant.
The 35 years old entrepreneur and advocate for small businesses spoke to journalists on Thursday September 5, 2024, at Asaba, the Delta State capital shortly after he addressed small business owners in the nine local government areas of Delta North Senatorial District of the State.
Hear him: “I am in Asaba to speak with small business owners across the different local government areas in the Delta North region.
“And we are here to support our small business owners by training them and by giving them a lot of grants for them to start and to grow their businesses”.
He said the disturbing feedback, he received here in Delta, was that the grants were given to members of a particular political party, which he condemned in its entirety.
Said he: “I am being told that in Asaba, what has been happening in Delta State, is that a lot of benefits that goes to small businesses, are only going to one political party.
“And that is very wrong, poverty does not know one political party, poverty does not know sex, poverty does not know age. A hungry man, is an angry man”, warning that hunger leads to anger and anger on its own leads to violence.
He fingered hunger and anger as reason why some youths are restive.
According to him, “one of the things we are doing, a long term solution is to help to improve the capacity of our young people. The short term solution is to give the grants like we are doing right now.
“When we increase their capacity to enable them get the funding that they need by themselves. So, my appeal to everyone in government is not to weaponize poverty in Delta State.
“So that we can get the benefits for all our small and medium enterprises across the country because when a small business grows, a family grow. When you feed a small business owners, you fed 10 people
“Let us reach out to our young people, to our small businesses and grow our small businesses”, saying that SMEDAN), cannot do it alone.
He called on the state government to partner with the agency to make sure that the capacity of small business owners were developed.
He disclosed that the N50 billion set aside by the president, was to boost one million nano businesses with the sum of N50, 000 each.
He described nano businesses as those that has less than three employees and are doing a turnover of less than N3 million.
“So, this is fresh injection of N50, 000 into these businesses. What we want to do, is that we are looking at other alternative sources of income, we are building the capacity of these small businesses and they can be introduced to the banks.
“There can never be access without capacity and that is why we are here to build the capacity of our small businesses so they can unlock access”.
He noted that participants are selected based on those who registered for the grant on www.smedan.gov.ng, “you can apply and from there, we shortlist people . When we shortlist these people, we bring them together like this and we reach out to them”.
He said the President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s administration, is one such that a nobody becomes somebody, as such people do not need to have any connection neither what is popularly known as “long leg or go through shortcuts”.
He further noted that as a way to reduce or end corruption, modern technology was used by collating bank details where the grants were paid into, “what has happened to many of the beneficiaries was that before now, they have gotten account numbers and their money has been credited.
“We did not bring money physically here. We didn’t count any money here. That is a way to reduce corruption, that is a way to end corruption.
“We are using technology to reach out to all our small businesses without knowing anybody, we are doing this by merit and we will make sure that we get to all small business owners.
He revealed that he has been to 14 states so far with a plan to cover the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), before the end of the year.
