21st October, 2014
Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta on Monday signed into law the bill on the Delta State Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency and other matters.
Uduaghan performed the function at the Government House, Asaba.
The bill was presented to him by the Speaker, Delta State House of Assembly, Mr Peter Onwusanya, before the State Executive Council members, official of the Poverty Alleviation Department and newsmen.
He said that with the agency, the state was now qualified to key into the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) N220 billon Micro, Small, Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) scheme loan.
“With the agency in place, it will enable us to deal with our ‘Delta Beyond Oil’ not at the big levels but at the small level.
“The fear all along is that what happens to the micro credit scheme when this administration is not there.
“That is why we talked about this law to protect the programme and I know that with this law, the programme is protected.
“As one of the states selected to benefit from the CBN funds, without this agency, we cannot benefit from the funds,” Uduaghan said.
Uduaghan said that the agency had as its objective to facilitate financial services to fund micro and small agricultural businesses.
The governor said that the law empowered the agency to partner other relevant agencies like chambers of commerce and public and private organisations to effectively deliver on its mandate.
The speaker told the governor that they had come to present the bills as passed by the House of Assembly for his accent.
He thanked the governor for believing in them, adding that the lawmakers had done justice to bills presented to them.