Tuesday, 29 September 2015

Confectioner urges FG to ensure easy access to funds by SMES


A Lagos-based Confectioner, Mrs Precious Aremu, on Tuesday urged the Federal Government to provide small and medium entrepreneurs with funds to help them to remain in business.
Aremu, the proprietor of Palinio Cookies Ltd., told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that many small businesses were going under due to paucity of funds.
``To sustain one’s business under the prevailing Nigerian economy is quite a challenging task,’’ said Aremu whose industry exports biscuits.
``Even the institutions that are supposed to support enterprise with finance are contributing to the death of small businesses because of their nonchalant attitude to give out loans.’’
Aremu also urged the Federal Government to review its policy on the ban of importation of certain items needed by bakers.
``For example, the cost of baking bread will go up and affect affordability if government bans the importation of margarine.
``It is counterproductive to ban items that one has not been able to produce in quality standard locally because industries that depend on such material input are likely to groan,’’ she said.
She added that the dearth of skilled bakers and auxilliary personnel needed to create boom in Nigeria’s baking sub-sector was contributing to the low productivity in the industry.
``The amount of fund expended on training and retraining of personnel by bakeries is worrisome when one considers the profit as motivation to go into business.
``It is the more worrisome that those that have been trained do not remain in the sector to contribute their quota to its growth,’’ she lamented. (NAN)


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