Promoting and sustaining entrepreneurship should be an integral part of the government’s National Development Plan, if it is to speed up growth and job creation, the Association of Micro Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (AMEN) has said.

In an interview, its President, Prince Saviour Iche, argued that entrepreneurship was vital to  growth and promoting inclusion. Therefore, imploring the government to prompt policy and structural developments to promote entrepreneurship, build capacity and foster entrepreneurial thinking  should start at the educational level.

He lamented that the border closure affected small businesses following ban of cargo movement.

He said: “Many of the foreigners who used to visit us in Nigeria to buy goods they don’t have in their countries no longer come again. During the lockdown, some of those consumers took time to build capacities to produce those goods they were buying from us. It was a big blow for SMEs here.”

Iche added that a lot of SMEs did not benefit from the palliatives given by federal and state governments. According to him, small business owners were still lamenting that they could not access the N50 billionTargeted Credit Facility (TCF) meant to support MSMEs whose economic activities were significantly disrupted by the pandemic.

He told our reporter that many small business owners complained about the challenges in obtaining or applying for loans. Several applicants, according to him, complained about not being able to open accounts or access the facilities and others about making inquiries without responses.

Besides this, Iche said small and medium manufacturers were facing raw material challenges.Though they operate cottage businesses, he explained that cosmetic and personal care enterprises mostly rely on imported raw materials as a source of production. So far, he continued that increased prices of raw materials have made it difficult for SMEs to carry out production despite the demand in the market.

Iche stressed the need to help broaden the finance options available to SMEs and entrepreneurs, noting that start-up firms, in particular, are finding it difficult to borrow money from banks, and the capital requirements have made the situation more challenging.

He maintained that many SMEs borrow money by paying high rates of interest or offering costly collateral, which hinders their growth. He said the situation has left entrepreneurs behind in achieving success in the development.