ICAN President Seeks one Year Interest Free Loans for SMPs

ICAN President Dame Onome Joy Adewuyi has called on development financial institutions to grant interest-free loans to Small and Medium Practice (SMP) firms and other Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to enable them revive their business knocked down by Corona Virus pandemic.

She said that revival of small businesses would be key to economic revival in the post Covid-19 era. “When they start to grow and prosper, they will pay back the loans while the government will reap taxes from them”, she said. She promised that ICAN would engage relevant government agencies to work out the modalities for accomplishing this strategy which it considers as a national priority.

According to Dame Adewuyi SMEs, SMPs and other players in the informal sector were the hardest hit by the lockdown brought about by Covid-19 as they were precluded from going about their value creating activities forcing most of them to consume their capital in order to survive.

“As we emerge from the health/economic crisis, the government’s focus should be on how to support these entities and people who contribute the most to national economic growth.”