The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) has announced its decision to commence the collection of data that would provide empirical report on insolvent industries in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the Director General of NACCIMA, Ambassador Ayo Olukanni, in the communiqué of the 4th Quarter Council Meeting of the NACCIMA, which was held recently in Benin City, Edo State.
The communiqué read: “Council announced the decision to commence data collection on insolvent industries across the country through the NACCIMA Secretariat. This is to help drive private sector activities, in collaboration with member-chambers, for advocacy, business development, and trade promotion activities. These activities will focus on promoting market access opportunities, as well as, develop an empirical report on the state of insolvent industries and factories within each state of the federation.”
The fourth quarterly meeting, which was presided over by the National President of NACCIMA, Mr. Ide J. C Udeagbala, also highlighted the need to enhance skill development and promotion of technical and vocational education in Nigeria in order to bridge the gap in the supply of semi-skilled and skilled technical manpower in the country’s labour market.
The NACCIMA also called for the full implementation of the Executive Order 5 of the federal government, which would foster the promotion of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and increase the pool of skilled technical workers that the private sector could tap into to improve productivity.
It said: “The council deliberated extensively on skills gap in Nigeria and particularly shortage of technical and semi-skilled labour, which is crucial to industry and domestic production. It drew attention to the high unemployment rate of 27.1 percent, which is a reflection of the fact that those who are unemployed lack the skill to fill open job positions.
“Consequently the council strongly recommended the full implementation of Executive Order 5 of the federal government, specifically, the ‘Presidential Executive Order for Planning and Execution of Projects, Promotion of Nigerian Content in Contracts and Science, Engineering and Technology.’
“This is to help promote TVET and also increase the pool of skilled technical workers which the private sector can tap into to improve productivity. In this regard the council reiterated that the private sector must play a more important role in policy formulation and various activities of the National Board for Technical Education as it work towards finding enduring solution to the nations technical man power needs.”
The communiqué also harped on the need for the public and private sectors to be committed to the promotion of the application of technology in the conduct of business in the Nigerian economy.
It stated that the council’s “attention was drawn to the contribution of technology and telecom sector which made significant contribution of 14.2 per cent in Q3 2021 to the growth of the economy even in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic.
“Consequently it was resolved that the NACCIMA will pay more attention to the application of technology for the growth of businesses and in the pursuit of its vision to develop technology co-creation centers and industrial parks in its three geo business zones.
“Notably, the council also expressed its willingness to work with the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and its agencies such as the National Communication and National Information Technology Development Agencies (NITDA), to key into the National Broad Band Plan in other to take advantage of the digital infrastructure, which received a boost with the launch of the 5G network not long ago.”
The council also adopted recommendations on how to strengthen and support the activities of its women wing, the NACCIMA Women Business Group (NAWORG), which has been working actively working on a series of programme on Affirmative Procurement and Inclusion Programme (APIP) for women owned businesses that have been negatively impacted by Covid-19.
It also made a case for encouraging the youth to join NACCIMA Youth Entrepreneurs as part of strategy to encourage young people into the chamber movement.
NACCIMA also harped on the need for the promotion of “resolution of issue of payment of VAT and issue of payment of FIRS Practice Direction by FIRS both of which can have negative effect on the businesses.”
