Economic Empowerment

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Source: Daily Trust
Supporting women-led enterprises is a huge opportunity, as the World Economic Forum (WEF) has consistently found a strong correlation between gender equality and national competitiveness.

In Nigeria, women currently run about one-third of its Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) but with the growth in entrepreneurship, access to finance poses a huge challenge for these women.

With other intervention funds such as the CBN fund of which 60 per cent was earmarked for women, Tony Elumelu $100m entrepreneurship fund, and Aliko Dangote N5bn partnered with the Bank of Industry (BOI) all for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs), information revealed that it is still a herculean task for women to access the loans.

Augustina Adedeji is the CEO of Quick Culinary Global Limited whose company specialises in removing the unhygienic manner in which basic food items are packaged started her business in 2014 as a result of a bad experience she encountered.

She explained how her husband bought her cray fish but "on this faithful day, the one he bought I abandoned it for more than two months due to too much dirt in it. I didn't touch it because it was dirty. The sand and shell put me off and I left it after a while until my sister came and said we can make use of it and that was when we separated the dirt from the cray fish and it was good for use. That experience was what built my passion in starting this business."

The business woman told our reporters that access to funds is the major bottleneck as she has tried severally to access loan to expand her business without success, "I approached SMEDAN for assistance on how to secure from the N220 billion CBN intervention fund but I was told that to access it I have to provide track record of about two to three years of my sales. This means they are targeting businesses that are a bit large to give the loans but my business is barely two years old.

Mrs. Adedeji in her quest to access the loan also said she has also tried Bank of Industry ,adding that when she got there she was given different excuses, "when you get there they will tell you form is finished or not available or the fund is for so, so, and so kind of businesses."

"I also heard about the Cottage Agro Processing Fund (CAPF) a few days ago in the television when they were doing their presentations I want to go to their website and check it out but it is going to be challenging because they say they don't collect collateral but sometimes before one gets guarantor and other criteria it becomes too late.

Yes, we know some bad eggs among us have been dubious in the past, they access the loans get the money and before you know it they run away but some genuine ones among us have ideas and don't know how to put them in pen and paper to convince somebody to bring in their funds."

Martha Tony, a tomato farmer in Kuje Area Council said access to finance has affected her plans to expand her business. The young mother of five told our reporters she has on several occasions approached Kuje area council management for soft loan to rent a bigger land and get some fertilizers for her farm produce but her efforts has been fruitless.

"I went to the Area council some two years ago, and requested for a loan of N25,000 to expand my farm but I was told to go and see one of the cooperatives that is already involved in the process in the council. I did and was charged N1000 for membership and other charges. I did all that, and was asked to fill forms for the loan. This is my second year and up till now there is still no laon", she lamented.

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