Women Farmers Task President-Elect On Export Policies
The President, Lagos State Women in Agriculture Association has appealed to the President-elect, Sen. Bola Tinubu, to review and harmonise policies on exportation of agricultural produce.
Alhaja Mulikah Ogunlola, also founder, Yukawam Farms, Isolo, Lagos, said this in an interview on Thursday.
She also stressed the need to improve on the ease doing business for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in the country.
Ogunlola said that the policies were too stringent and affecting small business owners.
Export policies
She said that the incoming government must address bottlenecks on export policies including requirements and documents.
The aquaculture farmer said that the policies should be streamlined and to encourage more women into the sector.
According to her, there are a lot of challenges affecting women SMEs operations in the country and we want our new government to address them.
“Since I received my export certificate from the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) over a year ago, I have not exported anything out of the country officially.
“All what the government have been doing for us is training, training and training.
“They have not done anything for us since I got my exporting license because the requirements are too numerous.
“I have never exported anything out of the country officially as a registered exporter.
“Majority of our SMEs export through the backdoor because of the stringent requirements,” she said.
Improve the ease
Ogunlola urged the government to improve the ease of doing business adding that other countries of the world had simplier and more friendly requirements.
“The export policy is too cumbersome; before you can do anything, they will ask you to get different documents from different agencies.
“We want the process to be made easy and less cumbersome for women,” she said.
She also called for harmonisation of export policies and requirements to improve the ease of doing business.
“Government can harmonise all its policies on exporting to support SMEs.
“It is no longer the problem of NEPC, they have given us our license but all other requirements to start exporting are too difficult.
“We want the new incoming government to address all these challenges to create an enabling environment entrepreneurs small business owners.
“The present policies and requirements is not friendly to the SMEs, too much bottlenecks.
“We are looking forward to the incoming government to help address all these bottlenecks so that our businesses can thrive.
He said when another government comes in, maybe things would be better off, but right now, the policies are not friendly to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
He added that the new government is their hope be due to the fact that they have promised to address many of their challenges during their campaign.
Lateefah Ibrahim
