NASSI said process of obtaining loans too cumbersome for small scale entrepreneurs
The Chairman, National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), Dr. Andrew Nuwanta, has raised the alarm that more than 20,000 small scale enterprises cannot access credit facilities from the Bank of Industry BOI.
He said the cumbersome process of securing credit facilities from the bank had shattered the prospect of thousand of micro industrialists in the country.
Dr. Nuwanta who spoke in Uyo on Tuesday lamented that the purpose of establishing the industry had been defeated because “the procedure of accessing credit facility does not favour small scale industrialists.”
According to him small scale industrialists were catalysts of development in any economy but lamented that the federal government was not doing enough to encourage the development of the sector.
He called on the federal government to empower small scale entrepreneurs and industrialists by lending take-off funds to skillful youth through the Bank of Industry at single digit interest rates.
Nuwanta advocated that some of the conditions for securing credit facilities from the banks should be relaxed to favour small scale business owners.
According to him, “The federal government established the bank to carter for the industrial needs of the nation but by the time micro industrialists approach the bank for loan they are given hurdles they cannot achieve.”
He expressed the fear that with the rate of population explosion in the country if the micro small and medium scale entrepreneurs were not targeted by government, restiveness would be the order of the day in the country.
