Acting President inaugurates MSME clinic, optimistic of growth of sector

Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo has stated that President Muhammadu Buhari knows Nigeria’s capacity is limitless in terms of what we can produce.

Speaking on the President’s convictions he said “when he gave the 2017 budget speech in December 2016, the President said the central vision of our government is to grow everything that we would eat and to make everything we would use.”

The Acting President stated at a gathering of small scale businesses, industry and stakeholders across the public and private sectors involved in developing the micro, small and medium scale enterprises in the country at the launch of the Katsina State’s MSMES Clinic in Katsina.

Prof. Osinbajo averred that the Federal Government’s newly launched Economic Recovery & Growth Plan (EGRP) places high premium on the nation’s capacity to grow it’s export potentials rather than continue on the unsustainable path of total dependence on import.

He said the focus of the Plan is to develop “the capacity of Nigerians to do everything that we need internally; to become a net exporter of the various things that we are importing today.”

Explaining Federal Government’s (FG) reason for the inauguration of the MSMEs Clinics that is now going round major cities in the country, Prof Osinbajo stated that it was designed to give small businesses the opportunity “to meet with the industry regulators, to talk to them and to hear their problems”, adding that he was so excited to see not only business men but women who are focussed and serious about their businesses.

He explained that the idea of the MSMES clinics which he has personally attended for the fourth time now is the Buhari administration’s effort to close the gap between MSMES and relevant FG regulatory agencies like National Agency for Food Drugs Admonistration and Control(NAFDAC), Corporate Affairs Commission(CAC), Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Bank Of Industry (BOI), Federal Inland Revenue Service(FIRS) and others and ensure that those agencies become facilitators of businesses not obstacles to business development.