Vice President Kashim Shettima, on Thursday, disbursed N150,000 grants to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Enugu.
The Vice President revealed that he was directed to distribute the fund by President Bola Tinubu to business owners in Enugu State.
Shettima also inaugurated Nigeria’s largest Ultra-Modern MSME Fashion Hub in the Enugu State capital.
He said President Tinubu’s commitment to creating a business environment that provides incentives and opportunities to transform MSMEs into formidable enterprises is unyielding.
Shettima affirmed the President’s commitment to bridging the infrastructure gap and ending the erosion menace in the Southeast geo-political zone.
He hailed Governor Peter Mbah for lifting the people of Enugu and the state from the ruins of poverty to the current state of economic prosperity.
The vice president expressed happiness that Mbah’s administration had positively changed the face of Enugu State within a short time in office.
“Until the emergence of Governor Peter Mbah, Enugu was a sleepy town that didn’t even have water supply.
“So, Your Excellency, we want to thank you. We want to commend you. We want to identify with you. Honestly, I’m quite pleased to be in your midst this afternoon. We’ve had some very fruitful discussion with the honourable Deputy Speaker,” he said.
While lamenting that erosion was already affecting the livelihood of Nigerians in the region, Shettima explained that the president had concluded plans to have discussions with the National Assembly and the governors of the Southeast in order to come up with a workable solution to permanently deal with the erosion within the region.
He said: “The problems of the Southeast are problems of infrastructural deficit; problems of erosions that are affecting the very livelihood of our people.
“We’ve made arrangements with him (Deputy Speaker). We will sit with the leadership of the National Assembly. We’ll sit with the governors of the Southeast and come up with a whole solution to deal with the erosion, especially in the states like Anambra and Abia, and even Enugu is not left out of this scourge of erosion. These are issues that need practical solutions.
“And in all honesty, in terms of governance, we’ve never had it so good in the Southeast like the current dispensation. We have to sustain that brotherhood, that relationship for the good of our people. Through development, through investments in education, we can change the narratives from negativity to positivity.
“The President told me that I must come to Enugu and assure the good people of Enugu that our government must do whatever we can to support the people of Southeast.
“Enugu holds a special place in my heart. President Bola Tinubu has a special place in his heart for Enugu State and the Southeast. This led to the passing of the South East Development Commission (SEDC) into law and his quick assent to the bill. And the headquarters of the SEDC is here in Enugu.
“Energy is a sinequanon for any industrial growth. Without power, we’ll forget about industrialisation. To this effect, Mr. President picked a daughter of Abia State, Engr. Jennifer Adighije, as the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria, to champion the course of lighting up the Southeast.
“Again, the governor of Enugu State, Dr. Peter Mbah, is humble and hardworking. Let’s put politics aside, Mbah means well for the people of Enugu State.
“I was especially enamoured of his security projects. I was pleased by his investment in supplying water to parts of the state capital and most importantly, education is the game changer.
“Within a generation, we have honored a celebrated icon and his investment in smart education yielding a bountiful harvest in the coming years. And he is one of the very few chief executive officers who are versatile with potentialities of the IT industry.
“If I say I was impressed by what I saw In Enugu, it will be an understatement. I was overwhelmed by the giant strides recorded by Governor Mbah and his team. He has embraced modernity. He has embraced digital technology. Most of the things I saw are urban guard technology, state-of-the-art security infrastructure. Beautiful road network. He is doing excellently well and he is worthy to be emulated by other governors across the length and breadth of this Nation.
“He is humble and a very sellable person. He is doing well and the world needs to know what he is doing. Honestly, I have learnt a lot. I will come back to learn more about the smart education. I am obsessed with education and so is the governor.
“We will see how we can partner because we are now in the phase of development. Politics is over. We have to collate into a single force and face the challenges of under development in our nation”.
Shettima, who reiterated the Federal Government’s support for MSMEs, noted that the N150,000 grant “is an outright grant that does not require beneficiaries to repay.
“Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has mandated that a grant of N150,000 each be awarded to outstanding exhibiting MSMEs at today’s event.
“Rest assured that this is an outright grant, and the beneficiaries will not need to repay it.”
He said that, as the very lifeblood of the nation’s economy, the MSMEs sub-sector had remained a top priority of the Tinubu administration, “contributing more to the economy and our GDP. Shettima added: “And the governor is actively with the Office of the Vice President to see that we have given them the desired attention and resources and support.
“Rest assured, in the coming months and years, we will see change in the MSMEs across the length and breadth of Enugu and the nation at large”.
Governor Mbah, hailed the Vice President for being a champion of MSMEs’ growth in Nigeria, noting that, he had only moments earlier, commissioned the Enugu State Fashion and Garment Hub, a facility developed by the Office of the Vice President in partnership with the Enugu State Government through the Enugu SME Centre.
He said the Expanded National MSME Clinics came as a gift of priceless value to young entrepreneurs in Enugu State and beyond because almost 90 percent of businesses in the country are small scale.
Mbah added: “So, MSMEs are clearly the backbone and lifeblood of our economy. But as important as MSMEs may be, their success is no chance occurrence.
“They thrive only through careful policies that enhance the ease-of-doing-business climate, comprising key enablers like the sustained provision of infrastructure, security, efficient legal and regulatory framework, among others.”
