A financial expert, Mr John Wodinma, has urged the Federal Government to develop infrastructure and policies that would boost the growth of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) that would cater for the teeming unemployed youths in the country.
Wodinma who was the former Financial Manager of one of the defunct Micro Finance Banks made the call in an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt on Friday.
He urged the federal government to eradicate factors that militate against the growth of MEs, saying an end must be put to the multiple taxes being slammed on SMEs.
He said that many times, taxes paid to the federal government were also demanded by the state and local governments.
According to him, “This is apart from the huge expenses on electricity among other things. These multiple taxations have prevented SMEs from growing and employing jobless Nigerians. If the federal government meant well for its economic diversification agenda, then this ugly trend must be curbed,” he added.
He also charged the federal government to establish more preservation facilities for farm produce, saying that the agriculture industry had not been successful in its food sufficiency project, because 70 per cent of produce every year were lost in transit and wasted due to lack of preservation centres.
Wodinma stressed the need for Farm Management Companies (FMC) to manage well the agricultural system of the country.
He appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to be lenient on modalities for accessing funds for SMEs’ support, regretting that a lot of micro finance banks could not access the fund to empower the entire poor, because of its stringent rules.
