23rd May, 2021
The Lagos State Government, through its Ministry of Home Affairs, on Sunday said it had registered 400 money lenders across the state in the last two years.
The Commissioner for Home Affairs, Mr Anofiu Elegushi, said this in Ikeja during the 2021 Ministerial Press Briefing to Commemorate the Second Year in the Office of Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
Elegushi said that the ministry was in partnership with the money lenders sector.
He said that arrangement was structured in a way that most of such organisations were mandated to register with the ministry for the coordination of their activities.
”In return, the ministry registers, profiles and monitors the viability of such lending companies.
”This is in ensuring that while the money lenders are in business, the general public is also protected from scammers and people of questionable characters, while we also regulate the activities of the companies,” he said.
According to him, the partnership has assisted small-scale business owners in the state to keep their petty businesses afloat without having to contend with high interest rates of the big banks.
”This activity had contributed to the micro-economic growth of businesses in the state,” he said.
The commissioner said that the state government had since year 2000 encouraged public-private partnerships.
Elegusi said that the government had been involved with public-private partnerships to the extent that other state governments in Nigeria come to understudy the Lagos State, with the hope of replicating the same in their various states.
He said that Lagos remained the first when it came to collaborations and that had resulted in the progress made so far in all sectors of the Lagos economy, making it a 21st Century city comparable to other major world cities like New York, Paris, London.