The Federal Government has commenced disbursement of the N50bn grant to growing small businesses across the country.
The Director General of the Small, Medium Enterprises Development Agency, Mr. Charles Odii, disclosed this on Thursday in Asaba, Delta State capital, while addressing small business operators drawn from the nine local governments in Delta North Senatorial District.
Odii said the grants were for one million beneficiaries who had gone through online registration process, pointing out that he had so far been in 14 states to interface with the beneficiaries with the hope of visiting the remaining 22 and the FCT before the end of the year
The SMEDAN boss emphasised that the grants were not meant for members of any particular political party and should not be politicised, expressing displeasure with the alleged lopsided selection of beneficiaries in Delta.
He said, “We are in Asaba to speak with small business owners, mostly youths, who had been selected to benefit from the grant of N50,000 each, the training programme is to further support them to grow in their businesses.
“I am being told that in Delta State a lot of benefits earmarked for small businesses, are only going to one political party.
“That is very wrong, poverty does not know one political party, poverty does not know sex, poverty does not know age. A hungry man is an angry man, hunger leads to anger which in turn leads to violence.
“One of the things we are doing, a long term solution is to help to improve the capacity of our young people. The short term solution is to give the grants like we are doing right now.”
He appealed to everyone in government to cooperate to get the benefits of the initiative for small and medium enterprises across the country, saying that when a small business grows, a family grows.
“When you feed a small business owner, you feed at least 10 people
“Let us reach out to our young people, and grow our small businesses. SMEDAN, cannot do it alone,” he said.
Odii called on the state government to partner with the agency in building the capacity of small business owners, whom he categorized as employing less than three staff, with an annual turnover of less than N3 million.
He said in the long run the beneficiaries would be introduced to the banks, explaining there can never be access without capacity and that was why they came to build the capacity of our small businesses so that they can unlock access to credit facilities.
