ACCI Urges Govt to Enhance Support for Businesses

ACCI Urges Govt to Enhance Support for Businesses

By James Emejo

The newly appointed President of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Dr. Al-Mujtaba Abubakar, has appealed to the government to deepen collaboration and support for businesses adding that his administration will work to sustain a tradition of creative engagement in the interest of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

Speaking recently at his inauguration dinner in Abuja, he said his administration would be committed to sustaining the legacy of policy innovations for the various ministries, departments and agencies and well as strenghthen engagement with the government through various platforms and structures.

He further disclosed that as part of the drive to give the chamber a strong voice, there are plans for the establishment of the ACCI radio and television stations.

He said he will also adopt a deliberate policy of capacity building for the ACCI alongside development of management processes to enhance efficiency and productivity and improve the chamber’s membership base to align with its prime position as a Grade A national chamber in the country.

Abubaker, at the occasion chaired by the Emir if Gummi, His Royal Highness Justice Lawan Hassan Gumi, among other dignitaries, however, commended the federal government for its robust support for the business sector so far.

He said: “Our target is to enhance our capacity to influence policies in favour of business. We are recommitting ourselves to providing data driven proposals from which government can tap for economic prosperity through facilitation rather than regulation of business sector.”

He vowed that the new executive members will take the chamber’s legacy projects to the next level adding that as a system that adores continuity gor stability, critical projects will be fast tracked going forward.

He explained that both will take off through the chamber’s podcast and YouTube channels and will later migrate to dedicated programmes on national radio and television through a PPP partnership.

He pointed out that both the podcast and youtube channels will help to project policy issues affecting businesses while also airing interviews with chamber and business leaders.

Among other things, Abubakar said:” Within the life of this administration, we plan to expand the Infrastructural and investment profile of ACCI through world class additions to the brilliant records of my predecessors in office.

“A major part of our focus is to maximise the investment of ACCI assets.

He noted that the global economic distruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had changed the world forever adding that the uncertain era has also ushered in the new age of innovations and possibilities.

He said: “The pandemic enforces a new thinking and is leading to a new shift in how businesses are conducted worldwide. As a business organisation, chambers of commerce across the world are also adjusting to this new reality as business remains the real creator of national wealth, governments are also innovating various strategies to support business and ensure the wheel of production and services are sustained.”

He insisted that as a well organised movement of business people with established structures across the country, ACCI represented the best routes for government to channel its interventions for SMEs.

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