The Nigeria Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) has urged the federal government to establish a special fund to be known as “Towns/Cities Renewal Fund”, to address the socio-economic decay in major towns and cities in the country.

According to the association, the special funds, to be jointly managed by the federal and state government, would address economic challenges facing industrialists in Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, and Enugu, among others.

The President of the Association, Dr Simon Chukwuemeka  Okolo made this call in a paper he presented to the vice-president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, in Abuja recently.

Okolo said that major towns and cities are faced with severe socio-economic problems such as decaying infrastructural facilities, growing rate of crime, traffic and human congestion amidst growing population and increasing tempo of business  activities.

This special intervention fund, he said, would help resuscitate the industrial organizations, that are already on the verge of total collapse.

To stem the harsh operating business environment due to lack of access to credit, poor and high cost of infrastructure, lack of enterprise zones, industrial clusters and parks, the NACCIMA president also urged the government to “pay special attension to solving the problems facing the (Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs).establishment of adequately equipped enterprise zones and industrial clusters and parks at federal states and local government levels”, he said.

He further stressed the need for the government to urgently establish credit guarantee scheme to address the problem of collateral for SMEs, while banks should be encouraged to be more development oriented in granting loans and discriminator interest rate should be applied in favour of SME facilities.

NACCIMA has also called on the federal and Lagos State government to relocate business operators along the Badagry Express Way (Seme border) linking neighbouring countries to an industrial clusters area.

Dr Okolo said business operators along these roads should be relocated to industrial clusters where all the necessary infrastructures would be provided.

He said this should be addressed immediately taking into account the number of workforce/business affected by this programme.

For examples, the current extension on both sides of the Badagry Expressway to and from Benin Republic is crying for a serious attention as business operators have been sent packing without consideration to resettlement”, he said.

According to the associations president, major towns and cities are faced with severe socio-economic problems such as decaying infrastructures growing rate of crime, traffic and human congestions amidst growing population and increasing business activities therein.

He commended  the federal government who made a pronouncement late 2005 to assist the Lagos State government in addressing the several/diverse problems confronting Lagos, especially that of infrastructure which should be implemented to the letter as well as extended to other cities  and towns in Nigeria with similar problems.