FRC, IoD Collaborate To Train SME Owners
The Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria in collaboration with the Institute of Directors Nigeria has trained owners of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.
In a statement, the IoD said that the new era of doing business in Nigeria demands that SME owners maintain high standards of business ethics and integrity. The statement opines that SME owners are expected to discharge their statutory duties of ensuring the prudent management of risks in an orderly, informed fashion.
According to the statement, the partnership between FRC and IoD was planned by both parties to tailor an initiative that would train SME owners in corporate governance, which will help them in transitioning from the informal ways of doing business to the formal.
This idea of a collaboration was first mooted on August 17, 2018, when the governing council of IoD Nigeria, under the leadership of the President and Chairman of the Governing Council, Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed, paid a courtesy visit to the Executive Officer, FRC, Mr. Daniel Asapokhai, and his management team at the FRC office in Lagos.
According to the IoD statement, the two organizations hold a shared opinion that while the surge of SMEs in Nigeria is a boost for the economy, it will also pose a huge challenge in the long run long if the owners fail to embrace the best business practices in all of their dealings.
Ahmed Mohammed described the appointment of Asapokhai as the CEO of FRC as a wise choice by the Federal Government, one which comes at the right time to douse the tension generate3d by myriads of views about the corporate governance code in the country. He said that IoD Nigeria considered the SMEs as buffers to the economy and that the young directors controlling the small businesses need to adopt the best practice culture.
He as well remarked that there is a pressing need for SME operators to hop onto the next level of doing business, not necessarily by building facilities, but by way of organizing their businesses in a better fashion.
This development was first reported by Latestnigeriannews.