Charles Odili, the Director General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, has appealed to the Federal Government to consider small and medium enterprises when awarding contracts.
Odili urged FG to award 25% of its contract to small and medium enterprises, stating that SMEs dominate a large percentage of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
According to him, 50% of the country’s GDP emanates from SMEs and that the SMEDAN employs about 60 million people.
Odili said this during a chat with journalists on Wednesday in Abuja; he noted that he had a meeting with young legislators and small business owners and it was discovered that the challenges of SMEs is mostly cost and funding.
“Government is the biggest spender; the biggest employer of labour. We want small businesses to benefit from contract awards.
“What that means, however, is that small businesses need to be well-equipped to be able to win government contracts.
“96% of businesses in Nigeria are small businesses; so it is only 4 per cent that are big.”
“We shall help at least one million entrepreneurs to structure their businesses to become eligible for such funding,” he said.
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