THE ROLE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN SMALL SCALE ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT IN ENUGU STATE

THE ROLE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN SMALL SCALE ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT IN ENUGU STATE: The post-independence Nigerian government adopted the entrepreneurship government which constrained it to assume the role of entrepreneur and the urge to offset the economic neglect of the colonial government and that resulted in engaging in ambitious industrialization programmes.When the Nigerian industrial Development Bank Limited (NIDB) was established in 1964 for the purpose of speeding up the industrialization process, its mandate was to promote industrial projects which were large enough to make applicable contribution to the national economy. However, the collapse of the oil boom in the early 1980’s exposed the inherent weaknesses of this importation of inputs resulted in large idle capacities, thereby creeping many gross domestic product (GDP) declined in the face of the strong national aspiration for the restructuring of the economy and reduction of the dependence on petroleum. Small and medium scale enterprises have since become the focus of national industrial policy.

In pursuit of self-reliance in a developing country particularly in Nigeria, the central government enacted a decree called “Enterprises promotion Decree” when there was need for small scale enterprises in the promotion of economic development.This has since been at the fore front of development strategies. However, many developing countries have failed to adopt these strategies owing to their belief that it is a relatively slow process of industrialization. Without the development of small scale enterprises in Nigeria