24062019 - EDO Oyegun Oshiomhole ateach others troats

FINANCIAL VANGUARD
We're trying to
establish trade
relationship with
Africa - Omolola
Ajani
Mrs Omolola Ajani is the Chairperson
of the Abuja Branch of NECA’s Network
of Entrepreneurial Women, NNEW, a
platform established under the aegis of
Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Assembly,
NECA. In this interview with our team in
Abuja, she outlines efforts of her
organization in building sustainable
businesses among Nigerian women.
She notes that women businesses are yet to
feel the impact of the federal government
Ease of Doing Business initiative, while
outlining the agenda for tomorrow’s
training programme with the theme,
“Instituting Corporate Governance in Our
Businesses.” Excerpts:
By Emma Ujah, Abuja
Bureau Chief & Emmanuel
Elebeke
WHAT is NNEW?
It’s a collection of
women entrepreneurs, we operate
in all the strata that cuts across
supply of goods and services. We
have manufacturing, clothing
lines, furnishing, food and
beverages. We operate in all the
lines.
It’s a collection of these women
that not just act as a pressure group
for worthy courses that highlight
the benefits of entrepreneurship
and even the growth of
entrepreneurship but provide
access to information that will
help these women I their
businesses. We try to link them up
with information such as access
to funds, access to knowledge and
all that besides the training
aspect of the organization.
We also try to harness our broad
network base in order to reach out
to other countries. Basically, we
are trying to establish trade
mission’s relationship with Africa
whereby we can exhibit some of
our produces and goods and
services.
How do your members
balance their roles as wives,
mothers and businesswomen?
We teach women how to have
work life balance because
competences and skills are very
important as well. How to
delegate. If you know you have a
challenge with cooking, you must
learn how to cook or out-source
it. There are several options to
that.
What is the nature of
tomorrow’s programme?
It is a networking programme.
Both members and non-members
are expected, so that we can all
connect to harness and project the
benefits of the network, which
primarily, is in building ourselves
to be more productive.
The networking programme is
one of our flagship
programmes. We have several
others. This is the second for the
year. We have a calendar that
gives us an evaluating
system. This is the second
quarter. We had one in the first
quarter. How has it been so far?
This second quarter is pushing us
on what steps to take forward.
That is why our emphasis is
Instituting Corporate
Governance in Our Businesses.
Some of our speakers are: Mrs.
Ndidi Nwuneli, the Managing
Partner of Sahel Consulting
Agribusiness & Nutrition Limited;
Mrs. Adetara Agbakoba,
Manager ,
PriceWaterHouseCoopers; and
Mrs. Latifat Balogun, CEO,
Hatlab Place.
There will be entrepreneurship
trainings, exhibitions/trade fair as
well as, networking meetings to
enable participants to expand
their reach and business
opportunities.
Why did you choose
“Instituting Corporate
Governance in Our Businesses”
as your theme for this
programme?
One of our objectives is to ensure
that women businesses are
sustainable and outlive us. We
want women businesses to become
like the Coca-Colas of the world.
What we see is that most
businesses in Nigeria die when the
owners dies. So we want to build
businesses that will last for
generations.
For you to do that, you need to
have a proper structure in your
business. We always complain
about everything that surrounds
us but sometimes, we need to look
inwards to see what we need to do
to survive- which is the right
structure.
We have done a lot of trainings
in the past to ensure that women
businesses have the right
structure, good business models.
We feel it is now time to take the
next step to ensure that they are
instituting the right corporate
governance.
From your assessment of
women businesses in the
country, what do you think are
the fundamental problems that
make them often fail?
What I see is that women are not
bold. If they are bold, they will
be able to take certain steps.
Which is why we are encouraging
them to institute corporate
governance. By the time they
institute corporate governance
and they see the steps to be taken
to institute it, they will see that they
have to delegate responsibilities
to other people.
Instituting
corporate
governance also
means that you
have to comply
with a lot of the
regulations of the
federal
government
It means it is not just you doing
everything. Not one cap fits all.
You are going to have other
people in charge of Finance, HR
and other areas of the business,
and you have to trust that they will
do that for you. When that is done,
you can now say, what next is
there for me to do as the business
leader, owner?
Instituting corporate
governance also means that you
have to comply with a lot of the
regulations of the federal
government. Government is
trying to generate more revenue,
internally. It is important for
businesses to be compliant, pay
their taxes, pension and many
other issues.
With corporate governance, you
will pay all these and once you do
that, you are contributing to the
Vanguard, MONDAY, JUNE 24, 2019 — 27
overall economy of this country.
Once you are paying all these, it
will pinch you and you will take
interest in what is happening on
the political scene.
Political scene?
Yes.
How?
Once you are paying taxes, you
will become interesting in what
the government is doing with you
tax. I am paying tax and I know
what I pay every month. I know
what I pay in pensions and I know
where it is pinching. So I want to
know who is there. What laws are
they making and how are they
affecting my business. We were
not doing those things before so it
was soldier-go, soldier-come, we
didn’t care, so long as we were
eating. But now they have come
out, they are everywhere forcing
themselves on us. They are
everywhere and we are paying
taxes and we know the pain.
In your earlier assessments
before you zeroed in on
instituting corporate
governance, did look at issues
about lack of
transparency? Book keeping in
SMEs?
Certainly. We have done all
those trainings in the past and
most of our women know that they
have to separate themselves from
their businesses. Remember we
told you we are trying to build
businesses that will last for
generations. So if you don’t put
structures in place, it won’t
happen. Instituting corporate
governance will force you not to
do those things that you have just
mentioned.
You know I told that women are
not very bold. They are very
cautious. Which is what men
don’t have. They are very bold but
not very cautious. They are very
trusting. So women too have to
learn to trust others with their
businesses. We need to start
delegating certain things so that
we can focus on the main
businesses, network, make
connections that we need to grow
the businesses because you can’t
grow the business by micromanaging
the people. You need
to move out.
What are the effects of the
various regulations and taxes on
women businesses?
They are killings the
businesses. Many of them are
faced with the options of should I
close down the business, put my
money in the bank and then every
six months I go and collect my
interest or what should I do? The
situation is very difficult for
women businesses. If the
government is looking for one
trillion naira and there are only
three hundred registered
businesses and they choose to
audit and audit those few, it is not
going to help the economy. I
think what the government should
do is to widen the tax net to bring
in more tax payers, rather than
allowing the current multiple
taxation to kill the existing
businesses. There are a lot of
briefcase businesses who are not
paying taxes at all, while those
paying are over burdened by the
government. That shouldn’t be.
How has the federal
government Ease of doing
Business initiative impacted
women businesses in the
country?
The ease of Doing Business in
Nigeria, if you give the change to
rate it on a scale of 1-10, it is
between 2-3. The impact of the
Ease of doing Business has not
been felt by women businesses, at
all. And that goes down to the
implementers. It could be the
civil servants, or whoever the key
players of that initiative are. The
concept may be wonderful but
how do we implement it to the
extent where the target audience
benefit from it.
It is an attitudinal change
thing. While we are talking
about SMEs should do this,
government should do that, we
should target the individuals
involved in it. So as an
entrepreneur, I have to do this, the
government staff, you have a role
to play. As a government
regulator, you have a part to play.
The bottom-line is that the
administrative bottlenecks are
choking. Government realizes
that entrepreneurship is the way
to go. The challenge is how to
implement policies of
government to the extent that it
positively affects the woman on
the street.
The truth is that it is the women,
with their small businesses that
are actually upholding the
economy of this nation.
Some people have argued that
money is not the problem of
Nigerian SMEs. Do you agree?
Yes.
Why?
I said this because if I know that
money is my problem, I know
what to do. But we have so many
unforeseen issues that may come
up. As I am sitting down here
now, I can get a call that
somebody has just come to my
office and shut it because I don’t
have TV licence. What is TV used
for. And the law says you pay for
the licence per building. So
because I have two buildings in
my premises I am being charged
per building. There are so many
battles to fight. As you grow, you
become more visible so you
become a target. It is like you
have to create a department to
handle government issues which
makes it more expensive for small
businesses.