The Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria (ASBON) on Wednesday urged the Federal Government to rehabilitate Industrial Development Centres (IDCs) across the country to enhance economic growth and job creation.
The President of ASBON, Dr Femi Egbesola, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Egbesola said there was a dearth of industrial centres in the country with most of the existing centres in a state of neglect and disrepair.
NAN reports that there are about 23 Industrial Development Centres in the country and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) is in charge of these centres.
These centres were established to provide industrial extension services, boost entrepreneurship skills, appraise loan applications, and to help purchase and install machinery.
The centres also conduct research into industrial products involving design for Small and Medium-scale Enterprises.
According to Egbesola, the importance of industrial centres cannot be overemphasised, because of their role in stimulating growth of the MSMEs sector and the economy.
“We do not have enough industrial development centres that can meet the needs of the present number of MSMEs that we have in the country.
“For example, the centre we have in Lagos State is situated at Ikorodu; you can imagine the whole of Lagos having only a centre that cannot even accommodate 100 SMEs.
“Furthermore, most of the centres across the country are in a state of disrepair, they are filled with non-functional and obsolete equipment with their environment not conducive for entrepreneurs.
“This brings a lot of questions to our mind such as if the government is really interested in the development of the MSME sector.
“This is because funding and reviving the centres should be its starting point, if it was really interested,” he said.
The ASBON president added that favourable policy formulation, implementation and funding would boost empowerment as well as fast-track development of MSMEs in the country.
He said the rate of growth of the economy would be amazing if there was a policy mandating every local government in the country to have a development centre.
“We have a lot of people, especially youths, who are yearning to do business. They do not have money to buy land or money to rent factory space or buy equipment.
“However, if these parks or centres are there, with little or nothing they will be able to turn their ideas into reality,” Egbesola said.
He noted that the derelict status of the industrial centres could be due to lack of proper funding to the agency in charge of the centres.
According to him, because of these obvious gaps associations like theirs are thinking of building their own industrial centres or parks.
“We must help ourselves if the government cannot help us,” Egbesola said
The ASBON boss said that functional industrial centres would create jobs, improve production of goods, and expand product distribution locally and internationally.
Egbesola said the centres would also assist in earning foreign exchange and boosting the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).