An economics expert, Charles Nicholas, on Tuesday called on the Federal Government to enact laws and policies that would assist Small and Medium Enterprises in driving the economy out of recession.
According to him, recent research revealed that the government does not employ more than 5 million in its workforce because 40 percent of the labour force are employed are in the SMEs.
Nicholas, the international coordinator of CEO Business Journal, spoke with journalists in Abuja, ahead of the International CEOs Economic Summit scheduled for November 28 and 29 in Lagos, with the theme: ‘Promoting a private sector driven economy through partnerships.’
He said, “The SMEs are the main drivers of the economy and employ 40 percent of the labour force. We did an estimate of the total number of staff being employed by the government and they are not more than 5 million. The total number of staff under government establishment are not more than 5 million. Who takes care of the other mass number of people? It is the SMEs, that is the main reason why the SMEs should be encouraged to grow.
“The SMEs also help in job creation because the government cannot employ everybody. If there are 10 restaurants on a street, they need cooks, waiters and people to clean the plates.
“The truth is that the SMEs cannot work in isolation to end the economic recession, this is actually a collaborative work. If the SMEs are not empowered with good laws and sustainable policies that will enable them access some basic infrastructures, they can’t help government to achieve much.
“Nigeria should stop importation of what it can produce locally. The government should enact laws and policies to boost SMEs. I mean empowerment that would be with less interest rates and policies that make banks to fund ideas and projects.”
Nicholas said that globally, the need for strong and sustainable economic structure that is private sector driven is seen to be the solution to creating massive job opportunities in many countries.
He added that any country that needed to build strong systems must embrace fully inclusive private sector strategy, where government invests mainly on infrastructure and make sustainable development and stable economic policies/laws that will strengthen its private sectors.
The summit, he said, is to convene a world class platform for strategic business partnerships between CEOs on both sides of the business performance equation.
