By Olaseinde Gbenga, Abuja
The Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs commission (CAC), Hussain Ishaq Magaji has declared that the Commission is on course to register 20 million Small Micro enterprises (SMEs) in line with President Bola Tinubu’s agenda to create employment opportunities.
The CAC RG made the disclosure when he received bulk registration of small businesses from a Non Governmental Organisation called “Kudimata Foundation” on Tuesday in Abuja.
Speaking, he revealed that the commission has received 300,000 small businesses to register and also 30,000 from Kudimata, noting that it is a foundation sponsored and also in partnership with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and National Youths Service Corp (NYSC) foundation to register for small scale acquisitions for corp members.
The General Managing Director and Founder of Kudimata, Kathleen Erhimu said, “The aim of the foundation is to catch participants at the youth service stage, after these entities are well registered, they are also equipped with start-up kits.”
“These corp members are then attached to mentors who would see them through their entrepreneurial journey through a specific period of time after their NYSC scheme by monitoring, evaluating and ensuring they start up strong.”
Kathleen explained that Kudimata was born two years ago after she had worked in the banking sector for almost a decade.
“Having watched the economic situation of the country, it was clear to me that we need to support and empower our youths and this is why Kudimata was created.
“We have collaborations with the NNPC, Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and some few banks across the country to see that our youths who after graduating are not cleared well to go.”
The GMD stressed that “there are also other partners in the pipeline that would help us to hand-hold them.”
“The idea is to ensure that all corpers currently undergoing the skill acquisitions process in NYSC (SAED) go through this process. It is an 8 module course done by both “Kudimata and NNPC academy,” he said.
She noted that the startup process is to train each participant in basic financial education before going to the second phase called “kick start my business.”
“However, in kick start my business they go through business fundamentals and all they need to start up their entrepreneurial journey, and also to make sure they are fully equipped by vetting each participant to have them registered, which has necessitated us to partner with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC),” she added.
According to her, the foundation currently has over 300,000 registered corp members and is also working assiduously to register over 100,000 members before the end of year 2024.
“We have trained over 300,000 till date, and all have been going through the business fundamental stage. The aim is to ensure that our corpers are fully equipped and bottom line is the economic sustainability and development,” she explained.
