The biggest hindrance for manufacturers and business owners toward accessing loans is collateral.
The Acting Managing Director of the Bank of Industry, Waheed Olagunju, while speaking during economic development interaction with Aba traders, said that government had taken steps to make businesses viable by providing relevant tips to break the barriers of difficulties faced by some in accessing loans.
The event, which was flagged off by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, also had various federal government agencies involved in economic development interacting with the Aba traders with the aim of growing and supporting their businesses.
Olagunju said skills, requisite knowledge, and responsibility are needed to ensure that a manufacturer is committed to the business and can pay back loans. While pledging the bank’s support to Aba manufacturers with respect to accessing loans, Olagunju identified issue of collateral as a major constraint to accessing loans by most businessmen in the country.
“The first aim starts with marketing, how do manufacturers market their businesses? Hence government has been coming up with procurement policies that are in favour of SMEs.
“It has been done in other parts of the world. I think that we are evolving the same thing in Nigeria so that government patronize MSMSEs so that what happened in the past do not happen again,” he said.
