Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello has opined that in order lessen the burden of reliance on governments resources there was the need to dissipate the myth of a civil servant state, by creating viable Micro Small and Medium businesses.
Governor Bello made this known on Wednesday in his address at the unveiling of the Kogi MSME clinic during an organized Kogi State MSME workshop and exhibition in commemoration of the maiden edition of international MSME day at the glasshouse, lokoja.
He noted that For far too long our people have depended on government as the main driver of the economy, hence why the work force remained over bloated and government overloaded with paying of salaries, pensions, gratuity and other entitlement of civil service workers both at the state and Local government.
According to him “The sad reality is that government would need to deploy 80% of gross government income each month to pay the civil servants, yet they constitute less than 1.8 % of our population of 4.5million people”. He stressed that such effort was both unsustainable and unwise.
He recalled that when he took office, there was no existing MSME eco system or hub much less a dedicated agency like the Kogi Enterprising Development Agency (KEDA) which coordinates and cater for the immediate and long term need of the MSME.
Giving that MSMEs are the major driver of the society, especially a non industrialised society his administration made sure that it created the agency through which entrepreneurship could be encouraged, build a thriving hub in the state in a bid to actualize it 4th thematic blueprint; youth engagement and new venture creation, he pointed out
The governor stated that his government pursued this cause because it recognized that the growth of entrepreneurship and new venture creation would broaden the spectrum of every Kogi citizens who were willing to work hard to become financially independent.
According to him “no matter how willing we are or hard we work, we cannot absorb more than 10,000 new workers into service in any two terms irrespective of how many retires from service however with a bit of innovation and hard work, we can create 500, 000 new MSME business in the same time frame”.
The governor expressed his intention to substantially achieve such feet before the end of his tenure, through the work of KEDA alongside other Ministries, departments and agencies.
Governor Bello asserted that although his government had made appreciable efforts in enhancing entrepreneurs knowledge base, capital availability, improvement of overall ease of business and ensuring that the operating environment was free from disincentives such as insecurity, this would be taken to the next level.
He charged KEDA on the discovery of innovative ways in getting interested Kogi citizens into MSMEs in a profitable manner, improve the pace of its activities and bringing existing business and government institutions into viable collaboration adding that government was strengthening the capacity of women and youth in building viable businesses across all the sectors in the state.
Earlier in her welcome address, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer KEDA, Hajia Rakiya Onaivi-Sanni said despite the agency’s efforts to stimulate business environment in the state, more should be done for MSMEs to reach their full potential.
She noted that the workshop was expected to set kogi MSMEs on a path of viability and to make it easier to do business, increase revenue and decrease unemployment.
According to her, the project was expected to bring businesses and Government agencies to a series of business forums where MSMEs can deliberate and have growth opportunities.
