Expert Urges FG to Offer Incentives to Social Entrepreneurs
The federal government has been called upon to look into the possibility of establishing a special low interest rate fund to aid borrowings by private sector investors in social services as a means of halting the decadence in the nation’s crumbling social infrastructure.
Chief Executive Officer of MeadowHall Group, Mrs. Kehinde Nwani, made the appeal during a recent media roundtable in Lagos to announce the various on-going projects and activities of the Group and its subsidiaries.
She noted that the nation’s many infrastructure challenges make it wise for the government to encourage more social entrepreneurs to have access to low-interest rate loans in order to actualize the government’s dream of a private sector- led improvement in socio-economic areas such as health, education, child development, talent discovery and human capital enhancement.
“Drawing from our experience of the evolution of the Meadow Hall brand from inception to date, we are convinced that the country still has a long way to go in achieving basic globally ac- cepted standards as far as social infrastructure is concerned.
The needs are really massive and government at various levels in the country must do more to encourage social entrepreneurs, if the goal of holistic development of the country is to be achieved”, Mrs. Nwani said.
Continuing, she said “Take the Education Sector for example.
In order to achieve the goal of raising the standard and quality of education, there is need for creative and innovative support to public educational institutions especially in the areas of teaching staff skills enhancement, advisory on standard operating procedures and curriculum development as well as leadership training for pupils, among others.
Massive investment is required to achieve world class standards in the areas highlighted above and government alone cannot undertake the job successfully”.
In a related development, the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC), an arm of the Pan Atlantic University, has been commended for leading the way in entrepreneurial development in Nigeria and Africa.