Nigerian softies want a piece of the SME

Software practitioners in Nigeria want a piece of the SME funding.

They want government to compel banks to commit part of the funding for small, medium enterprises to developers.

Over N17 billion (about $18 million) was returned last year by commercial banks as unused SME funds.

Faced with a mix of social and economic factors, indigenous software practitioners have remained un-patronised and pauperised.

They are challenged by absence of support infrastructures such as constant electricity supply and a social perception of pushing products that are inferior.

Set against their more accepted foreign rivals, locally built software have never made significant inroad in any sector of the economy.

Practitioners blame their problems on government’s inability to support them. They want the sub-sector formalised. Among other things, this would entail drawing up clear-cut policy support and financial impetus for the budding industry.

The SME funding has been shredded of the cumbersome problems small-scale loan seekers face when they to banks for support. Government acts as guarantor and the conditions for collateral are not intimidating.

But banks are yet to understand how software practitioners fit into the SME scheme. “They ask you what does that mean and if you have sufficient collateral like a house in Ikoyi to get the loan. They don’t understand the business of software,” complained CEO Orstin O’ Perri Consulting Austin Onwughai.

The chief software architect of Orstin O’ Perri Consulting has been rebuffed by banks in the past “because software is not trading.”

Government would have to understand that software is research and it takes time to mature and reap dividends, said President of the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS) Dr Chris Nwannenna. [Related Story: Govt acknowledge funding as bane of software development]

For O’Seun Ogunseitan, software analyst with a software testing laboratory in its Lagos office, government would have to ask bank set aside 5% or 10% of the SME fund for software practitioners. Once, the developers know that their funding for what he is doing, he does not start and stop mid-way because of funding problem, said Ogunseitan. More…..

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