*To launch eight more in 2022
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has on Tuesday commissioned the fourth shared facility for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
The facility, which is located beside Amakohia Market in Owerri, Imo State, consists of a multi-million-naira garment factory in Owerri to assist tailors and fashion designers in the production of garments and clothing items.
Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, disclosed this on Wednesday in a statement titled, ‘FG opens fourth shared facility for MSMEs, fifth ready Friday, eight more next year’.
Osinbajo who unveiled the facility at the 29th edition of the MSME Clinic in Owerri said it would improve the quality of locally made clothing; adding that federal facilities belong to all Nigerians.
According to him, “Federal Government and federal resources belong to all Nigerians. Each state is entitled to seek partnerships with the Federal Government to better the fortunes of their people.”
Narrating how the idea of Federal Government providing Shared Facility centres emerged, the Vice President said it was “in the course of running the Clinics, we noticed that in addition to their requests for a more friendly regulatory environment, MSMEs also wanted to be supported in terms of production facilities which were lacking or too expensive.
“This is how we came up with the idea of supporting MSMEs by providing at least one Shared Facility in every State of the Federation. It is also why the President approved the Shared Facility Scheme for MSMEs as part of the MSME Clinics.”
The Vice President also said that the facility commissioned in Imo is the fourth in the country.
“It will serve about 350 small businesses daily and over 110,000 each year. It also comprises 200 world-class, both manual and fully automated fashion equipment; and a special facility that enables it to become a one-stop garment centre for end-to-end production of various types of clothing items,” he said.
He revealed that Edo, Kaduna, Kebbi, Ogun, Ebonyi, Katsina, Ekiti, Bauchi and Kano equally had shared facilities that would be inaugurated in 2022.
According to the Vice President, the next shared facility scheduled for Friday, December 17, 2021, in Edo State would be woodwork carpentry and cabinet making factory to be located within Edo Production Centre in Benin City.
Copyright PUNCH.
