The National Productivity Centre is reviewing its 2021-2025 strategic plan in line with the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ of President Bola Tinubu’s administration on the improvement of national productivity to boost the economic development of the country.

The Director General of the Centre, Dr Nasir Raji-Mustapha, who stated this in Abuja, stressed the importance of productivity in advancing national development as exemplified by advanced nations of the world who rely on productivity improvement tools to grow their economies.

On why the Centre is reviewing its strategic plan that was designed in 2021, Raji-Mustapha explained that the Centre is rejigging the work plan to be in tandem with the agenda of the present government, adding, “Now we have a new regime, we are aligning our strategic plan into the eight-point agenda of Mr President as far as productivity is concerned.”

The Centre chief revealed that efforts are ongoing to increase the capacity of productivity consultants to offer more efficient productivity tools to companies and solve their business issues and challenges.

“We have done a lot in our interventions for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) with our productivity and quality improvement tools and techniques. Though funding was limited, it was not a major hindrance last year. This year 2024, we believe that we will cover more areas and consolidate where we are making huge inroads,” he said.

This year and beyond, Raji-Mustapha said the focus of the Centre will shift to assisting companies and firms to perform better as the base of economic development.

“In the past, a lot of people thought our flagship programme, the ‘National Productivity Order and Merit Award’ was the only productivity award that we give to individuals and organizations. So, when I came on board, I decided that we must change the narrative because, for us at the National Productivity Centre, there is another aspect of us that is not very well known. For more than three decades, we have been helping companies and organizations turn around the fortunes of their businesses. My focus is on how to change the narratives of companies that are not doing well and improve those that are doing well to even do better,” the NPC boss explained.

He argued that as the engine room of development, Small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) must be empowered, assisted and guided to achieve maximum outputs.

He added, “The SMEs are the engine of economic development all over the world. The reason for this is not far-fetched. Most SMEs are domiciled in the informal sector which constitutes more than 75 per cent of the economy. Therefore, Productivity Centres are crucial in most countries of the world because they work closely with the informal sector. Productivity Centres provide knowledge and skills that help SMEs grow their businesses and that is what I have been doing over the years but now we are going to be doing more of it. We are focusing our resources more on the productivity and quality improvement scheme for SMEs in Nigeria.”