CAPACITY building has become a favourite lingo of all who claim to be improving the economy. The abuses can be imagined. Small and medium enterprises are hailed for the promises they hold. The Bank of Industry’s efforts apart, empowerment schemes have become platforms for containing the youth rather than exploring their zeal and passion.
The Delta State Micro-Credit Scheme appears different. Its consistently winning of awards from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and other reputable bodies, aside, it forms a pillar of the State’s ambitious Delta Beyond Oil project, a visionary state economic policy that aims at weaning the State from dependence on oil.
Participants in Delta’s Micro-Credit Scheme are trained and advanced loans to start businesses. To minimise the risks of start-ups, the state government has introduced an insurance scheme to protect the business from the vagaries of markets. It is an important step other governments involved in SME projects should emulate.
Businesses, especially small ones, can benefit greatly from the certainty of knowing that if things go wrong they can get help to continue their journey. For start-ups, it would be immeasurable relief.
Mr. Fola Daniel, Commissioner of Insurance of the National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, doused fears about those the scheme covered being paid their claims quickly. “This is an insurance that is accessed by low income operators. NAICOM would withdraw the licence of any insurance company which fails to pay claims and also prosecute the owners of the companies for economic sabotage”.
Insurance schemes for SMEs will encourage more participants to test their talents in starting their own small businesses. It is a progressive step for rapid industrialisation of the rural areas. It would also assist in arresting the rural-urban drift, which has left the rural economies in a state of abandonment. SMEs have played the leading role in launching the economies of Asian countries to the world stage. As the largest economy in Africa, the growth and protection of our SMEs through insurance will bode even a brighter future for an economy striving to become the 20th largest in the world by 2020.
The smaller businesses could create the jobs that governments announce only as figures. A new economic foundation away from the one which was ravaged by neglect at the peak of the oil boom would serve Nigeria well. High unemployment rate, youth idleness and poverty, which in turn, account for increase in violent crime, including robbery, kidnapping, human trafficking, baby “factories” and terrorist insurgency, are some of the consequences of the over dependence on oil.
Any development that would sustain the rising impact of SMEs is welcome; insuring small businesses against failures would win more converts to personal enterprise.