More stimulus package for MSMEs coming, says FG

By Nduka Chiejina (Assistant Editor)

The Federal Government will soon roll out additional stimulus packages for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across the country.

Special Assistant to the President on MSME in the Vice President’s office Tola Johnson made this disclosure in Abuja at a virtual press briefing on the coming National MSME clinic award.

The award and the coming stimulus package is part of government’s effort to mitigate the adverse impact of the corona virus pandemic on MSMEs.

According to Johnson, the Federal Government is working on several stimulus packages for MSMEs, this will be released in due time.

However, before the stimulus package is unveiled, he disclosed that the Federal Government will inaugurate a 200, 000 capacity Yam Storage facility for MSMEs in Zaki Biam, Benue State as part of measures to support MSMEs in the state.

Tope Johnson noted that “the MSMEs Shared Facility Scheme of the Federal Government is one of the innovations from the National MSMEs Clinics.”

The reason for launching shared facility scheme across the country he said “is to provide necessary infrastructure and support facilities in production clusters across the country for MSMEs.”

The Shared facility scheme he added was designed so that MSMEs can jointly share and have access to facilities they hitherto cannot access individually.

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Later this year, the Benue state shared facility project located in Zaki Biam will be launched. The Zaki Biam cultivates 60% of all the yams Nigerians eat and they have a very large yam market. However, their major problem is storage.

Tope stated that that was what led the National MSME clinic to facilitate “the building of the shared facility where they can store their yam and to address security, the Nigerian police will be taking over that building.

“The facility is solar powered, they will be able to store their yams better, there are shades too that are provided” he said.

Tope Johnson revealed that from Benue the clinic “will be moving very quickly to Anambra state to launch a shared facility for leather works we are 70% into that and almost ready.”

From there they will proceed to Lagos to launch a fashion shared facility. “We are also 70% gone on that and we are having discussions with Kaduna, FCT at Kugbo furniture market.

For this year’s MSME clinic award he said will be different as all award recipients and other participants and guests will join the event via video conference from different locations across the country.

The portal for the nomination of MSMEs for the 2020 MSMEs Awards shall open on Monday June 1 2020 for a period of 4 weeks, and all registered MSMEs in the country can be nominated in the different categories of the awards namely:…..

Every MSME qualifies for the award.as long as your business is registered you have a CAC and Tax Identification number you qualify for the award.