Stakeholders have disclosed that the Federal Government has begun preliminary consultations with business membership organisations as they await an inaugural meeting to discuss the planned Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises census.
The PUNCH learnt from separate phone interviews with the National Vice President of the National Association of Small-Scale Industrialists, Segun Kuti-George, and the President of the Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria, Dr Femi Egbesola, that the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment was in the process of forming a preliminary committee.
NASSI National Vice President Kuti-George said, “They (FMITI) are forming a committee on the (MSMEs census) involving all the business membership organisations. The committee is not fully formed, but they are compiling the list. It is about 80 per cent formed.”
Kuti-George added that he was not aware of a prospective meeting date but was optimistic that major stakeholders were almost fully reached out to, stating, “By 80 per cent formed, I meant they have notified all the key business membership organisations, and that is how the information got to us also.
“I think it’s almost formed. They are in the process, and I believe it will not be long before they complete it. But no, they did not give us a date.”
Meanwhile, the ASBON president, Egbesola, corroborated the status update on the planned MSMEs census, describing it as a preliminary committee for information-gathering and stakeholder identification purposes.
“A preliminary committee is in place at the moment. It is for information gathering, for sensitisation, and all of that,” Egbesola commented. “I think that after this, they will be able to aggregate the stakeholders and then begin to work directly with the stakeholders. I think for now what they are doing is identifying the stakeholders. When they identify all the stakeholders, they will now look at how to aggregate before they begin.”
Egbesola clarified that there was yet to be a meeting of the stakeholders: “In the real sense, until there is an inaugural meeting, the first meeting, then we will not be able to have insight into exactly what they want to do and how they want to work out.”
He pointed out that stakeholders are in the waiting phase until they have sufficient information about the Federal Government’s plans.
“The best thing at this point is to hold on and wait for the inaugural meeting so we can have an insight into how they want to go about it, who they want to use, where they are going, and their roadmap for this process,” he stated. “Then we can categorically say this is it and make our recommendations and suggestions. Until that inaugural meeting takes place, it will just be guesswork. We need to wait to have deeper information beyond what we are just reading in the newspapers.”
