How we have been supporting young entrepreneurs - Dr AlimiBello, KDCCIMA President

seems to be making good efforts in that direction, though I can’t say the same thing of the Bank of Industry (BOI), which, it appears, is still not easing entrepreneurs’ access to loans.

The CBN said industrialists should access loans through the BOI, but the CBN, from complaints by the industrialists, is not helping matters.

How does the Nigerian system generally assist those who want to establish firms?

The Nigerian federal government lacks records that will assist a new entrepreneur on feasibility studies if he wants to establish a firm. The relevant federal agencies merely register a company to start business without educating him and providing studies on how the last one failed. The government has a responsibility of assisting entrepreneurs to develop.

The federal government once took a step to address the private sector grouse on multiple taxation by establishing a Joint Tax Board which restricted states and local governments to certain taxes. How will you assess the multiple tax regime now?

The multiple tax problem has really been detrimental to private sector operation in Nigeria. Businesses pay the federal tax collector, the state board of internal revenue and the local government all sorts of levies. This is after they must have spent a lot of money powering their own power supply, providing security, providing access roads and doing things that are taken for granted in other countries as governments’ responsibilities.

Now, the federal government is planning to increase value added tax from 5 per cent to 10 to boost its non-oil revenue as its income falls due to continued crash of oil price in the international market. This could lead to all sorts of adverse effects, including hike in prices of goods and services.

The federal government maintains that the Nigerian economy is improving. Do you agree?

That is on paper, and theoretically. But in reality it is not improving. I will give a practical illustration. In the past, many Nigerians used to come to the Kaduna Chamber to assist them in procuring a visa to attend the “Phantom Fair” in China. But this year, nobody is willing to attend the fair as the naira is down. Many said they have even calculated that if they travel there to buy goods to sell in Nigeria, they are not likely to make profit.

The federal government and the CBN really need to work very hard on the exchange rate problem, that is, the falling value of the naira.