Arobieke said the ministry set up the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Recovery Fund to support businesses in Lagos State, whose properties and assets were vandalised post-EndSARS protest that rocked the nation in October 2020.

She said that with funding from both governments, corporate organisations and private individuals, businesses were supported with grant sums ranging from N50, 000 to N5 million to beneficiaries to rebuild their businesses.

”With a total of 1,835 beneficiaries and N939.98 million disbursed, 10,005 direct jobs and 40,020 indirect jobs were saved.

”The achievements recorded so far by the ministry have been made possible through the unwavering support of the Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, in his pursuits to mitigate unemployment in Lagos State,” the commissioner said.

Arobieke said that the governor had approved the creation of a model and robust online marketplace with a lot of features that make it globally competitive.

She said that the informal sector, largely populated by artisans, was faced with challenges in the areas of access to the market, inadequate or lack of finance and access to capacity development.

The Commissioner said that these challenges were being holistically addressed through the development of the online portal, a marketplace for artisans and consumers.

According to her, the aim is to expose the artisans to the global market and scale up their potentials and all government certified artisans are currently being onboarded on the app.

She said that a total of 2,000 artisans selected from registered Trade Associations were re-trained in 2020, while the retraining and equipping of another batch of 2,000 artisans would soon commence.

Arobieke said that the tradesmen were exposed to entrepreneurial training, book-keeping, ICT, Communication, among other training, which is essential in running modern-day businesses.