TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover Page
Title Page — — — — — — — — i
Certification — — — — — — — — ii
Dedication — — — — — — — — iii
Acknowledge — — — — — — — — iv
Table of Contents — — — — — — — v
List of Tables — — — — — — — — viii
Abstracts — — — — — — — — x
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study — — — — — 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem — — — — — 5
1.3 Objectives of the Study — — — — — 8
1.4 Research Questions — — — — — — 9
1.5 Research Hypotheses — — — — — — 9
1.6 Significance of the Study — — — — — 9
1.7 Scope and Limitation of the Study — — — — 10
1.8 Organization of the Study — — — — — 10
1.9 Definition of Terms — — — — — — 11
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Literature Review — — — — — — 14
2.1.1 Role of Small Scale Industry in Nigeria Development — 25
2.1.2 Government Efforts in the Growth and
Development of SMEs in Nigeria — — — — 29
2.1.3 Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in
Nigeria: Problems and Challenges — — — — 35
2.1.4 Prospects of Small and Medium Scale
Enterprises in Nigeria — — — — — 40
2.2 Performance of Small Farmers in
AkwaIbom State Appraisal — — — — — 44
2.2.1 Objective of Integrated Farmers Scheme — — — 53
- The following have been stated to include
the functions of IFS — — — — — — 54
- Small Farmers in AkwaIbom State: The Challenges — — 62
2.3 Theoretical Framework — — — — — 65
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design — — — — — — 67
3.2 Description of the Study Area — — — — — 67
3.3 Population of study — — — — — — 68
3.4 Sampling Technique and Sample Size — — — 69
3.5 Instrument of Data collection — — — — — 70
3.6 Method of Data Collection — — — — — 71
3.7 Method of analysis — — — — — — 72
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND
DISCUSSION OF FINDING
4.1 Data Presentation — — — — — — 73
4.2 Data Analysis — — — — — — —- 73
4.3 Discussion of Findings — — — — — 93
CHAPTER FIVE:
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.2 Summary — — — — — — — 97
5.2 Conclusion — — — — — — — 97
5.3 Recommendations — — — — — — 98
REFERENCES — — — — — — — 100
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of Respondents
Table 2: Composition o8f Costs and Returns for the Production Cycle
Table 3: Percentage Distribution of the Poultry Farmers by Production Constraints
Table 4: Type of agro-enterprise funded and active participants
Table 5: Youth Empowerment through job creation
Table 6: Loan Repayment Performance of Youth Beneficiaries
Table 7: Which class of people in the society do you think the programme was targeted at?
Table 8: What do you think has influenced people’s participation in this Programme?
Table 9: The various poverty alleviation programme of the government have not made any significant impact on the people?
Table 10: Corruption, Political instability, intolerance and inconsistency of government policies could be said to be some of the setbacks that have hindered the efficacy of poverty alleviation programme of government in AKS?
Table 11: Sustainable national developments are being undermined by high poverty rate in the country?
ABSTRACT
The study assessed the Government Contribution towards Facilitating Small and Medium Scale Enterprises: A study of Small Farmers in AkwaIbom State.” Data were collected using simple random sampling technique from a sample of 101 beneficiaries of the scheme and were analyzed using descriptive research method. Results of findings showed that male participants 89 (88.3%) dominated the scheme, 63 (62.4%) of the participants were married and 41 (40.6%) had B.Sc./Higher National Diploma (HND). Again, findings revealed that among the factors that determined beneficiary’s choice of poultry enterprise was; incentives attached and domestic uses of product (98% positive response each). Also, the study revealed that youth’s participation in poultry farming was independent of age, gender, and household size, but dependent on number of years in the enterprise and income earned from poultry products. Furthermore, findings showed that inadequate information from Extension agents (91%), high costs of feed (89%) and fear of disease outbreak (88%) were the major constraints facing the enterprise. It concluded that, the feed production component should be incorporated into scheme to ensure all season round availability of feeds to ease off pressure on commercial feeds. Extension agents should double their effort in the dissemination of useful information to poultry farmers so as to encourage participation in the poultry production of the scheme.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
A business whether small or big, simple or complex, private or public among others is created to provide competitive prices. Business in Nigeria has been classified as small, medium and large. However, a small scale industry can be explained by the criteria of project costs, capital, number of employees, sales volume, annual business turnover and the financial strength. The federal and state ministries of Industry and Commerce have adopted the criterion of value of installed fixed capital to determine what a small scale industry is, in this respect, the value has varied from N60,000 in 1972, N159,000 in 1975, N25,000 in 1979, N500,000 in 1986, to a fixed investment of not more than N2,000,000 in 1992 and N5,000,000 in 2003 and beyond. This figure is exclusive of land and building and subject to government determination and the prevailing objectives of public policy. In the wake of SFEM, and SAP, this value has now been reviewed and subsequently, increased to five million naira. Since this happened, there may be a need to classify the small scale industry in MICRO and SUPER MICRO business, with a view to providing adequate incentives and protection for the former. In the meantime, any business or enterprise below the upper limit of N250,000 and whose annual turnover exceeds that of a cottage industry currently put at N5,000 per annum is a small scale industry. The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) concept of a small scale industry has been fixed to a maximum of N35,000.
From the 1980s till date, Nigeria generally and AkwaIbom State in particular has been plagued with multifaceted problems ranging from low capacity utilization, massive graduate unemployment, poverty, insecurity, collapse of infrastructural facilities and poor macroeconomic policy management. No doubt, Nigeria is blessed with abundant human and natural resources which could have been harnessed for its growth and development. However, with during corruption, monoculture nature of the economy and the dominant role of the public sector, the country lost open opportunities for growth and sustainable development. Government initiated numerous programmes and policies for SMEs development, but there is a limit to which government alone can promote sustainable economic development. This necessitated the government to adopt economic reform programmes to switch from capital intensive and large scale industrial projects which was based on the philosophy of import substitution strategies to small and medium scale enterprises which invariably have better prospects for developing domestic economy, thereby generating the required goods and services that will propel the economy towards development (Oni and Daniya, 2012). The whole essence of SAP and NEEDS introduced in the 1980s and 2000 respectively was to inculcate genuine entrepreneurial spirit in the mind of people so as to prepare them for wealth creation through small scale enterprises (Fasau, 2006).
In an attempt to reverse the declining in the nation’s economy, the current government policy of private sector led growth for job and wealth creation is aimed at developing small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs). Small and Medium Scale Enterprises are sub-sectors of the industrial sector which play crucial roles in industrial development (Ahmed, 2006). Following the adoption of Economic reform programme in Nigeria in 1981, there have been several decisions to switch from capital intensive and large scale industrial projects which was based on the philosophy of import development to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises which have better prospects for developing domestic economy, thereby generating the required goods and services that will propel the economy of Nigeria towards developments. It is on this premise that Ojo (2009) argued that one of the responses to the challenges of development in developing countries particularly in Nigeria is the encouragement of entrepreneurial development scheme. Entrepreneurship is fast becoming a household name in Nigeria. This is as a result of the fact that the so-called white collar jobs that people clamour for are no longer there. Even the much touted sectors (banks and manufacturing companies) known to be the largest employers of labour are on the down turn following the consolidation crisis and fraudulent practices of the high and mighty in the banking sector. The companies of course are folding up as a result of erratic power supply, insecurity and persistent increase in interest rate which has led to high cost of production and undermines their profit making potential. This has resulted in massive unemployment which is detrimental to the economic development in the country. Since the office jobs that people desire are no longer there for the teeming population, and the few ones that succeeded in getting the jobs are thrown out as a result of the factors identified above, the need for the government and the people to have a rethink on the way-out of this mess became imperative. Hence, the need for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) became a reality as a means of ensuring self-independent, employment creation, import substitution, effective and efficient utilization of local raw materials and contribution to the economic development of our dear nation (Nigeria). All the foretasted benefits of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises cannot be achieved without the direct intervention of the government and financial institutions. Over the years a number of policies have been formulated by the government under the then leadership of Chief OlusegunObasajo promulgated micro-finance policy and other regulatory and supervisory framework in 2005.
The AkwaIbom State Integrated Farmers Scheme is a deliberate intervention strategy of the State Government to achieve the duo of self-employment of youths in agriculture and food security in the state. It is borne out of government concern to reduce youth unemployment, through tapping of the vast agricultural potential in the state, and promoting agricultural business entrepreneurship for increased agricultural production. The State Ministry of Agriculture supervises the scheme which operates as a quasi-credit institution. An important aspect of its operation is that it first trains its potential credit beneficiaries before advancing loans to them. The scheme covers food crops production, aquaculture, snailery, livestock farming, etc. In piggery production for instance, the loan period is about 41/2years at 10% interest rate per annum with a grace period of one year. At present, the amount of loan is fixed at N500,000. Secured by guarantee/surety, for any agricultural enterprise in the scheme particularly production of food classes in short supply. In many developing countries like Nigeria protein intake per head indices are most deplorable. The daily animal protein intake per capital is put at 3.8 grams in Nigeria (Agunbiade et al, 2001). Furthermore, the agricultural production index in Nigeria showed that livestock output recorded a growth rate of 2.2% between 1990 and 2001 relative to 19.05% envisaged in the policy document for the same period (Evbuommwanet al, 2004). In year 2000 for instance, a negative output gap of – 121,000 tonnes was recorded for pork production (Evbuomwanet al, 2004). And the country is yet to witness positive variances in this respect. This output gap with attendant food security challenges is being addressed by laudable schemes like the Integrated Farmers Scheme (IFS). Many institution credit providers face business challenges among which are loaners not able to perform creditably as expected, particularly in areas of farm production and debt servicing. Many authors have highlighted the default challenges of the credit agencies (Okorie 1985; Osakwe and Ojo 1986). Even in this scheme, (Akpan 2009) has reported that out of about N108.4m granted up to 2008, only a paltry sum of about N7.4m was recovered within the period, thus leaving about N101m outstanding. This covers all the enterprises in the scheme. Since it is rationally assumed that repayment has to come from good performance in farm production and income, it therefore becomes quite expedient to first investigate the economics of actual production for which the advances made were not duly returned.
To this end, the study will examine the roles played by the government in facilitating Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in the development of Nigeria, using AkwaIbom State Small Farmers as a case study.
ASSESSMENT OF GOVERNMENT CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS FACILITATING SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES: A CASE STUDY OF SMALL FARMERS IN AKWA IBOM STATE
