By Prince Osuagwu

In fulfilling its promise to continue to support Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country, Etisalat Nigeria, in conjunction with FATE Foundation, last week held the third training session for entrepreneurs.

The programme, themed “Marketable & Workable Business Plans; Managing Growth & Changing Assumptions to grow bottom-line,” was facilitated by the FATE Foundation and trained more than eighty entrepreneurs in Lagos State.

Speaking on Etisalat’s rationale for supporting SMEs, the Head High Value Segment, Etisalat, Bidemi Ladipo, said: “Etisalat cares about the Small and Medium Enterprise segment, and even developed a special product for them called SME Prepaid.

The product is actually designed to help small and medium entrepreneurs save telecommunication costs because we know they are growing and need to save as much cost as possible. Taking it a step further, we decided to partner with the FATE Foundation to also train small and medium businesses so that they can become big businesses in the near future.”

According to Mr. Ladipo, this is the second time the event will be held in Lagos, while the training has also taken place in Port-Harcourt. He said the programme will move to Abuja before the end of the year.

With a monthly fee of N1, 000, SME Prepaid allows Nigerian entrepreneurs to make calls within their Closed User Group (CUG) free of charge. Subscribers are also allowed to call all networks at 25 Kobo per second.

The Fundraising Executive at FATE Foundation, Toun Oluwole, thanked Etisalat for caring about the small business owners and partnering with them on the project. “We are grateful to Etisalat for choosing us as trainers for this great programme,” she said. “This is in sync with our goal of providing knowledge and skills for Nigerians to make them independent and profitable.”