Reps Summon Trade Minister Over FG’s N250bn SMEs Palliatives

The Minister of Trade, Doris Nkiruka Uzoka-Anite, has been summoned by the House Committee on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) over the delayed take-off of the SMEs component of the federal government.

The Chairman of the Committee, Mansur Manu Soro (PDP, Bauchi), gave the directive after the failure of the minister to appear at the committee’s sitting held on Wednesday.

The chairman lamented that despite the importance of SMEs and their contributions to the nation’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP) and the overall economy, they were being relegated to the background and neglected.

According to him, the nation cannot do without SMEs if it wants to attain the needed economic growth and overall development.

Soro said SMEs deserved all the support from the government because they were most hit by the recent removal of fuel subsidy.

He said the N250 billion palliative by the federal government was a positive move to support the SMEs and prevent further collapse and loss of jobs peovided by these businesses hence, it should not be toyed with.

According to him, it was baffling that while the N200 billion and N100 billion for Agriculture and transportation respectively have taken up, the N250 billion for MSMEs sector is yet to commence.

Recall that President Bola Tinubu in his effort to address the effects of fuel subsidy removal had on July 31, announced a N550 billion interventions cutting across three major sectors of the economy.

The sectors include agriculture which was allocated N200 billion; MSMEs sector was allocated N250 billion while transportation sector was given N100 billion to be disbursed to beneficiaries in the sectors to cushion the effects.