•To establish 12 shared facilities before end of year

The nationwide Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Clinics for Viable Enterprises have offered on-the-spot solutions to challenges confronting 600,000 small and medium scale practitioners in the country within the last five years.

The Special Assistant to the President on MSMEs, Tola Adekunle-Johnson in Abuja, disclosed this while speaking on the 2022 national MSME awards.

This comes as plans are underway by the Federal Government to open additional three shared facilities in Kebbi, Kaduna and Ebonyi, which are expected to begin operation next month in June.

Adekunle-Johnson further hinted that another eight shared facilities to be used by small and medium-scale enterprises would be commissioned before the end of the year.

The new 12 facilities will complement the existing ones in Benue, Imo, Anambra, Oyo, Edo and Lagos states. He stated that the plan is to have one shared facility in each state of the federation under the shared facility scheme.

He explained: “The award is aimed at identifying small and medium scale enterprises that are doing well and rewarding them to achieve even greater heights. We now have about 600,000 of them nationwide. The idea of having many agencies collaborating is to render one-stop-shop services to identified groups of businesses.

“Under the MSME clinics, we have impacted more than 7,000 participants in 30 states of the federation thereby creating massive direct and indirect job opportunities. During the clinics, we have been able to render on-the-spot solutions to small and medium scale enterprises. We link them up with NAFDAC in case of product approval, with Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) for standard approvals and even with Bank of Industry and NEXIM for financing issues.”

He further explained that in line with the agenda of the Buhari administration, the office of the Vice President has over the years, supported the growth of small businesses across the country by empowering and rewarding excellence in the MSME space in Nigeria, saying one of such MSME targeted interventions is the National MSME Clinics birthed in 2017.

10 outstanding MSMEs in different categories will receive 10 cars and other prizes at the 2022 edition, which is the fifth edition of the awards.

The awards will be held on World MSME Day, which is slated for the 27th of June 2022.

Adekunle-Johnson urged interested MSMEs to visit the website and fill out their application.

The Portal opened for applications yesterday and will close on Sunday 12th June 2022.

On what the government is doing to ensure Nigerian produce is accepted globally, deputy director, engineering design and development division of the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Obassi Ettu, said the government has raised an inspection team to monitor and certify products that fit for export.

He hinted that Benue state already has a yam facility that will prepare yam for export, saying, “the relevant stakeholders know that the challenges are humongous but we are tackling them one by one. With the facility coming up in Benue, all the challenges associated with yam exportation will be over very soon.”