Entrepreneur bank in the works—Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said the the federal government of Nigeria is planning to establish an Entrepreneur Bank to provide flexibility in the provision of facilities to businesses across the country. Osinbajo disclosed this while answering questions from a cross-section of women in business at a programme tagged `Next Level Conversation’ in Abuja. The women, who were mostly entrepreneurs, were drawn from the education, environment, agriculture, real estate, hospitality among other sectors.

The vice president said that the issue of giving cheap loans to small businesses had featured prominently in the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration. Nigeria, he said, has been able to deal to some extent with small and micro businesses; we have TraderMoni, MarketMoni, FarmerMoni; which are basically very small credit schemes. “We are also looking at an Enterprise Bank or an Entrepreneur Bank which is one of the types of establishment we are looking at. We think there is a need for a bank that will be a bit more nimble about entrepreneurship; a bank that has a bit more flexibility.

“That is why we are talking about Entrepreneur Bank; of course, we will need a bill in the National Assembly; in the meantime, we think we can start with a bond to put a lot around it without necessarily building another big bureaucracy,’’ he said. Osinbajo said there was need to properly fund education as efforts were been made to get the Tertiary Education Trust Fund(TETFund) to also fund the private sector. He reiterated that the issue of funding education lied with the Federal, State and Local Governments. More so, the vice president said that the Federal Government would synergise with state and local governments to curb multiple taxation which had adverse effect on businesses. The ministers of Women Affairs and Finance participated in the interaction.