The Impact of Microcredit on the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Sector in Cross River State (CRS), Nigeria

The thrust of this study was to determine the impact of micro credit on the MSMEs sector in CRS, Nigeria. Three hypotheses were formulated from the research questions and tested by using chi-square statistic to validate the truth or otherwise of the hypotheses. Ex-post factor research design was adopted and a sample size of 158 respondents was selected and used for the study. A structured questionnaire was used in obtaining the data. In testing the hypotheses, all the calculated chi-square values were greater than the critical chi-square value at the given level of significance and degree of freedom. This resulted in rejecting the null hypotheses while the alternate hypotheses were retained. The results indicated that micro credit programmes have significant effect on MSMEs in CRS. Equally, credit administration has a significant effect on the performance of microcredit programmes and that collateral requirements on MSMEs have significant effect on obtaining credit from microfinance institutions in CRS. Arising from the findings, the study recommends that government should make more microcredit programmes available for the development of MSMEs in CRS. There should be efficiency in credit administration on the part of both government and the private sector so as to enhance the performance of microcredit programmes in CRS and also collateral requirements should be minimized, while low interest rate should be charged on micro, small and medium enterprises so as to enhance obtaining of credit facilities from microfinance institutions in the State.