Fashola Wants Artisans To Formalise Businesses

Governor Babatunde
Fashola of Lagos State last Thursday urged tradesmen and artisans to formalise their businesses to make them part of the real economy and aid development planning.
Fashola gave the advice while addressing traders and artisans at the grand-finale of the fifth Lagos Tradesmen and Artisans Week in Ikeja.
He said the huge potential of the informal sector would not be properly harnessed if not captured in the real economy.
The governor described artisans and tradesmen as strategic players in the economy, urging them to register their businesses to get captured in the state’s economic data.
The theme of the week was “ Sustaining the Growth of the Informal Sector: The Lagos model’’.
Fashola said: “ We have tried to capture some of the data of your members because so many of you exist in what we call extra-legal economy.
“The extra-legal economy is estimated to be about $45billion and this economy has no record of it.
“ That is about N7.2 trillion and that is about 14 times the state budget if we use 2012 budget as the basis.
“ We need to capture these businesses in the real legal form so that our records can reflect it.”
Fashola said the proper capturing of all economic activities in the state was necessary for development planning.
According to him, a reliable economic data will help the government to address unemployment and other related problems.
“You hear the people say I am unemployed; perhaps it is not the case of total unemployment.
“ Some truly are unemployed but some are just underemployed.
“ Some people, for example, are running a business that is not as productive as they want and they count themselves as unemployed.
“If we don’t capture that kind of person in our legal economy, such person does not account for one of the people who need electricity.
“ So when we are planning electricity for hairdressers in our data, we would not see that person.
“ We need to capture the records of the extra-legal economy to be able to know who is doing what so that we can plan for you,” he said.
Earlier, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Commerce and Industry, Mr Oluseye Oladejo, said artisans and tradesmen were the state’s strategic development partners.
While acknowledging the role of artisans and tradesmen to the economy, he said the government would continue to support the informal sector to develop its potential.
Oladejo said the week was meant to focus on the activities of the traders and artisans so as to adequately plan for them.
He said: “The main purpose of the gathering is not limited to merry making. It is meant to focus on the activities of tradesmen and artisans.