You are an entrepreneur. Your focus to serve more people by offering them more of the values, experiences, goods and services they want and make profit in the process is a just desire. Year 2008 is gradually winding down and we are peeping into 2009. How have you fared in 2008? And what are your expectations in 2009?

Nigerian President, Umar Yar'Adua presented his proposals for the 2009 federal budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday. A national budget is a short-time plan of what the government intends to do in a given time frame- one year, with a philosophical underpinning stating the thrust, what is to be done and how it is going to be financed.

Nigeria is at a critical juncture in its journey to unfold more of its potential. Critical infrastructure to drive any economy, such as electric power, gas, diesel, rail, motorable roads, bridges, etc, are limited. Millions of able-bodied youths are roaming the streets with reddish eyes, their stomachs empty, and no jobs in sight.

Supinely sit the almighty federal government, with its counterpart state and local governments, serving themselves. What have they done in 2008? Have you asked the President, your Governor, your Senator, your Rep., your LG Chairman what he has done in 2008 to make it easier for you the entrepreneur to produce, promote, and distribute more of your services in 2008? Have you asked him? And what do you think they are planning for you in 2009?

"The 2009 federal budget," says President Yar'Adua "is to deliver on our promises to reduce poverty and attain our Millennium Developments Goals (MDGs). Our guiding vision is as encapsulated in the seven-point agenda. By enhancing physical infrastructure through improving the power and road transportation sectors, we can improve the capacity of our non-oil sectors, such as agriculture and manufacturing, to contribute to more sustainable and enduring economic growth and development."

True, to get our economy on the fast track to growth, we need to invest in the so-called critical infrastructure, we have to invest massively in education and human capital development, and we have to invest in agriculture.

So when you are reading Mr. President's budget speech, what should you be looking out for as an entrepreneur? Remember you are the prime agent of change in the world of commerce and industry. It is you the entrepreneur who dreams dreams, isolates ideas, defines them, finds people and resources and makes the ideas workable. Without you modern society as we know it will not be what it is. Society needs you. And you need society to fulfill your mission.

So we ask, does Mr. President understand your role? Does he know how important you are to fulfilling the plan he has for Nigeria in 2009? Did he mention you in that budget speech?

The first thing that should interest you when you are reading that budget is what the federal government intends to do in 2009 to make more power available. Without producing more electric power, our capacity to do business and create more employment will remain dismal.

Second, look at the provisions for road transportation. It is sad that nothing is being said about radically expanding and modernizing our rail system. Movement of goods and services remain expensive, difficult, and slow with our poor road network. Many agricultural products cannot be moved to where they can be sold; and when they succeed in moving them, they get there already spoiled.

Next, we need to wait for the Minister of Finance for more details, and for the CBN to give us its monetary policy guidelines. You need to be interested in the list of items that the Customs are prohibiting (in this budget, some items have been taken off in comparison to 2008).

If your business needs some imported inputs, is the duty on it going down or up? If your product is competing with imported products from Asia and wherever, what is the duty on the imported products? Or, is it in the prohibited list?

You need to study all the areas of the budget, especially with a razor-sharp focus on your areas of interest. If you have not been doing business with the public sector in the past, this is the time to start. Doing business with the federal government is not what it used to be before. The process of public procurement and payment of completed and certified contracts has become much easier. (I'll do a series on this area in future.)

Things are looking up because you are looking up.