KARACHI: The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) has urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to strengthen the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda).
UNISAME President Zulfikar Thaver stressed the need to strengthen Smeda with funds for uplift projects, personnel for SME promotion and development and enhance the scope of the authority which is unfortunately neglected and left to die its own death. He urged the prime minister to take it under the wings of the cabinet division for direct decisions and to appoint the head from the private sector, who can comprehend the requirements of the entrepreneurs. Promotion and development of SMEs is not the subject of the bureaucracy, it is the job of business experts, he added.
All over the world, the SME promotion and development organisations are under the head of state and the prime minister or president of the country looks after the organisation. Even in the United States, the Small Business Corporation is directly under the president of US, he added.
He said that it is very unfortunate that at present there is no full time CEO of Smeda and although it was decided to appoint a private sector head but the matter remained pending due to litigation. Smeda is lacking proper staff as most of the employees have left, he added.
