SMEDAN empowers 17,634 MSME in 11Months – DG

By Matthew Denis

The Director General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Mr. Charles Odii HS disclosed the agency has empowered about 17,634 micro small medium enterprises in the last 11 months in office.

The DG made the disclosure during an interview with Newsmen at the ongoing National MSME Conference holding in Abuja on Friday.

He said “when we opened the application we had over 10,000 people apply. So what we were able to do was streamline them using some factors and so we had like 10 percent that is 1,000 people are here today.

“But we carefully chose people from our business organizations, from our associations, our stakeholders just so that when they go back to their different states they go with the information that was shared here.

“In the last 11 months we’ve impacted at least 17,634 micro, nano, small and medium enterprises with funding, with training, with support. And then we plan to do over 100,000 in the next 12 months.

“What we’ve come here to do is to get a refresh, a refresh idea. It’s like a refresher course. We’ve all been doing a lot of things in the last 11 months. Now we’re about to now set strategies targets for the next 11 months.”

The DG revealed that government has allocated 50 billion naira to support one million nano businesses, with each business receiving 50,000 naira.

He said “These nano businesses typically have fewer than three employees and earn less than three million naira annually, which translates to around 250,000 naira per month.

Mr. Odii stressed that they operating in various sectors such as trading, food services, ICT, transportation, creatives, and artisans

NewsDirect had understand that the Presidential Cash Grant Scheme The PCGS aims to empower nano businesses, targeting 70 percent women and youth 10 percent people with disabilities and 5 percent senior citizens. The scheme provides financial grants without repayment obligations to eligible small business owners.