An entrepreneurship expert, Mr Somi Uranta, on Monday, advised government at all levels to improve capacity building in entrepreneurship to enhance economic growth.
Uranta, Chief Executive Officer, Somi’s Enterprises, made this call in in Lagos on Monday.
He said government should engage Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) on entrepreneurial skills and training that would re-orientate their mindset for a paradigm shift in their businesses.
According to him, government had developed the SMEs’ with provision of different types of loans and grant over the years, but the gains would not produce a tangible result unless they engaged in capacity building on how to sustain their businesses.
“Every economy is driven by entrepreneurs, so there is a need to engage more SMEs in capacity building initiatives to develop their business expertise.
“There is also need for a behavioural change amongst small business owners in this country,” he said.
He said there should be concerted effort to bring those who had thrived in the business environment to train and retrain SMEs practically on how to excel and compete in the environment.
He appealed to government to create an enabling environment for small business owners to thrive and also formulate policies that would restrict the country to patronise only indigenous products so as to encourage more innovations among entrepreneurs.
Uranta, who is also a publisher of different journals on business, urged the federal government to improve the power sector to enhance businesses for economic growth.
He urged government to remove electricity generation and distribution from the exclusive list to the concurrent list so as to make a way for ingenuity, to allow investors deal with multiple taxation for businesses to thrive.
“Government can organise free seminars inviting professionals who had made a name in the business space to train small business owners on how to thrive in respect of challenges.
“This idea will encourage them because they will see the resource person as their mentor.
“For instance, at my car wash company, when there is no electricity, I used almost N30,000 diesel on daily basis to power the engines.
“As you can see there is no way I can sustain this because the profit is not commensurate with the expenses.
“Every economy is driven by the entrepreneurs, with all these barriers removed, the unemployment rate will reduced drastically.
He called on youths to channel their energy in business that would make them self employed and employers of labour for the growth of Nigeria’s economy.
“Since there are so many problems in the society, it means there are so much opportunities,” he said.
