Speaker says SMEs growth will strengthen Nigeria's democracy

The Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr

Dogara stated this when he received a delegation from the National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable (NASSBER) in Abuja.

He stressed the need to support SMEs in the country, noting that ``the promises of democracy: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness couldnot be realised if the people were ravaged by poverty and ignorance.''

He said ``we believe that the best way we can engender prosperity in the nation and fulfill the promise of democracy is when we get people to work, especially in the area of business.

``Small and Medium Business Enterprises, small businesses generating wealth, generating employment and so on and so forth.

``I have cause to say that the multinationals don’t generate wealth; they rather provide platforms to which citizens' wealth migrate to them.

``In most cases, capital is exported in terms of profits that they make from the nation.

``Small businesses that employ 40 workers; and if you have two million of those businesses employing 40 workers, on the average, you are talking about 80 million jobs; and we can do that in this country.''

Dogara further said that the decision by the House of Representatives to review laws of the federation was to create an environment that would enable businesses to develop.

Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Mrs Sola David-Borha, had told the speaker that members of the group had been providing technical support to NASS in the area of legislation and would continue to do so.

She requested the speaker to assist the group with a liaison office in the National Assembly and assign a high ranking member of House of Representatives to work with the group in the proposed private sector technical office in NASS.