Governor of Lagos state announces 100% increase in funding of LSETF to help grow small businesses.

Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has announced a 100 percent increase in the funding of the activities of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) to help grow small businesses across the state through soft loans.

The declaration was made on Thursday by the governor at the second edition of the Lagos Employment Summit, co-convened by LSETF and the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu during his speech noted that the state government had committed over N10 billion in grants in the past three years to strengthen the activities of LSETF to support 34,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

“I hereby announce a 100 percent increase in capital subvention to the Fund to enable the agency provide finance for budding entrepreneurs seeking to grow their businesses through soft loans and funding support.

“We have seen that LSETF can work and indeed, it is working. We have seen the potential of the agency in sustaining creation of job opportunities for our teeming productive residents. And I strongly believe that we can achieve a lot more in bringing down the unemployment rate in Lagos if we entrust the agency with a lot more capital grants to support businesses and innovative people.

“I am particularly happy with the progress of LSETF. In the last three years, our administration has committed over N10 billion in grants to strengthen it’s activities, supporting 34,000 MSMEs.
“Our intervention was instrumental to the 6.7 percent drop in the unemployment rate in Lagos before the pandemic.

“I charge the Board of Trustees and the management team to take this opportunity and push LSETF further to become a global brand that all of us can truly be proud of.

“Sanwo-Olu said that the summit will serve as a channel for subject matter experts in the job creation space to identify challenges, showcase leading practices and case studies, and share success stories that have helped in achieving a drop in the rate of unemployment.

“More importantly, the discussions held in this event will drive home the very important truth that our collective prosperity as a state, and indeed, as a nation at large, rely directly on the sustainability of the employment space,” he added.