ABIA’S ROADMAP TO BECOMING AN INDUSTRIAL INVESTMENT HUB (PPP/IP)
Every information has common elements and structure: beginnings, middles, and endings. For the benefit of proper understanding, it is necessary to frame the information into appropriate narrative structure. This post would have been anchored solely on discussing the Enyimba Economic City as a project. However we must capture the story line from the time it was just a mere idea; the roadmap from the beginning.
This piece is targeted at laying bare and bringing about cogent understanding of the roadmap, the impacts and the achievements of the Private Public Partnership/Investment Promotion (PPP/IP) Office in facilitating the processes of investing in Abia which encapsulates the investment cum investor(s) protection. No investor will invest where there is no law to protect the investment and the processes.
Months prior to his emergence as the Governor of Abia State, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu allotted to himself to device means to drive a revolutionized economy of the State once elected. At the centerpiece was to take bonafide consideration of the receivables which were the revenues of the State: the Internally Generated Revenue and the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) revenue, etc. A thorough examination of this trend revealed that by the time these receivables were spent, there won’t be any extra fund to drive economic developments such as major infrastructural projects, and building of industrial parks which cost hundreds of billions of Naira.
Owing to these facts, Dr. Ikpeazu, working with some Abia’s best from the private sector in the likes of Mr. Austin Ufomba, developed what later became the nexus of the Governor’s Development Strategy Document (DSD) on his ascendancy to power. The “savoir faire” injected into the development of the DSD led to some very early prominent appointments at the inception of Dr. Ikpeazu’s administration.
Propelled by the burning zeal to mobilize his developmental strategies, the Governor swung into action, inaugurated the PPP/IP Office and later the PPP/IP Governing Council ably chaired by Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa and co-chaired by Mr. Austin Ufomba who doubles as the CEO.
Saddled with the all encompassing responsibility of policy making, investment programmes advisory and co-ordinatory roles, priority sector identification, strategy framework development and engagement, investment supervisory activities, initiating and making investment on behalf of government, the PPP/IP office saw the need to set up legal structures that could help facilitate the public private partnership, because, as at that time, there was no investment law. Six months after Dr. Ikpeazu became governor, a law and the record time was passed into law by the State House of Assembly. This occurrence marked the genesis of everything we hear on Enyimba Economic City and other projects today.
The major investment processes and investors’ protection laws enacted by Dr. Ikpeazu’s administration via the PPP/IP Office to promote Ease-of-Doing-Business includes:
1. Private Public Partnership Law (A law to establish the Abia State Public Private Partnership and Investment Promotion Office)
2. Special Economic zone law (A law to establish and regulate the operations of special economic zones in Abia State, to protect the industrial zones against all the Local Government taxes, all the state taxes, and all the taxes aligned to distractions you can think of)
3. Establishment of strongest MOU’s agreement with the investment/investors’ protection (guarantees total money back should the government fail to play her role to ensure investment success).
These approaches captured here also includes solidifying relationships and connections with local investors, and partnering in facilitating linkages to open up new opportunities. Job creation and youth empowerment will be on the rise. It will boost infrastructural projects to catalyze economic and social growth which are all part of the roadmap to actualizing the vision of making Abia one of the leading investment hubs in the country.
NB: Emeka Anyalewechi Next, we will ignite discussion on each of the projects already open for investors starting with Enyimba Economic City.
UNU,
26/04/2019
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