Dike Onwuamaeze
The governor of Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, has invited businesses to invest in the state, assuring them that his administration has rebuilt Abia into a regional magnet for inflow of investment capital.
Otti made the call yesterday in Lagos during the Nigeria-British Chamber of Commerce’s “Meet the Governor Series” with the theme “Repositioning Abia for Enterprise, Industrialisation and Sustainable Economic Growth.”
President/Council Chairman of NBCC, Mr. Abimbola Olashore, in his welcome address explained that the “Meet the Governor Series” was a platform for direct and meaningful engagement between government and the business community that “enables investors, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders to better understand government priorities, development plans and emerging opportunities, while creating space for government to hear directly from the private sector”.
Otti, while commenting on his administration’s commitment to open up the state for investment, said, “Development in our view is what happens when the private sector is sufficiently motivated to take advantage of public sector investment to pursue their corporate goals.
“Development is essentially creating a network of advantages for hardworking men and women, cutting out the barriers to productivity and incentivising value creation.
“Much of what we have done in Abia State in the past three years is to rebuild our state into a regional magnet for the inflow of investment capital.”
The governor stated that investors, whether local or foreign, did not need not to be cajoled with expensive razzmatazz to see opportunities when they were real.
“They have their independent tracking system and need not to be told when to pay attention,” the governor said.
Otti added that investors will come to wherever there were quality infrastructure, security of lives, electricity and responsive institutions and will take a flight when they see that these conditions did not exist any longer or had deteriorated.
He stated, “At any rate it will be false to claim that we have built a modern state in 39 months. What we have simply done is to set a strong foundation to carry the weight of public expectations.”
Otti said that the disposition of his administration to lay a strong foundation for sustained economic development had seen the administration committing 80 per cent of its annual budgets to capital expenditure.
He said that long term development only happened on the foundation of government and private sector partnerships and emphasised that government must set the travel trajectory through deliberate investments in key critical infrastructure, institutional reset and firm assurances of safety.
Otti said, “Our state committed the most resources per resident on capital spending according to available national expenditure figures.
“We allocate at the minimum 80 per cent of our budget to capital expenditure.
“More fundamentally, our commitment to holistic and rapid development of the state has seen us push the bar on fiscal parameters like total budget growth and jump in capital allocation.
“Beyond our recent performance with respect to improving infrastructure and its spread, our 15 per cent outlay for healthcare delivery has seen the state top the national chart on health emergency preparedness.”
He also said Phillips Consulting affirmed that Abia State had a good ranking on security of life and property.
The governor stated, “For the business community with us this afternoon, you will be keen to learn that Abia is a good place when it comes to ease of doing business ranking and support for local enterprises.
“The entrepreneurs in the room will be pleased to note that the cost of public transportation when it comes to the amount of per kilometre commute on regular vehicle is the lowest in the entire country.
“For those who may have also paid attention, this will not come as a complete surprise considering the quality of our urban and rural networks in addition to strategic investments in green shuttle buses, which offers lower fares than combustive engines for intra and intercity commutes.
“Our transport infrastructure investment is without doubts crashing overhead cost for businesses including turnaround time and ultimately adding to net profits.”
Otti revealed, “Businesses that left the state years ago are returning.
“Evidently, investing in Abia is a rational decision for cost sensitive investors because of our solid enterprise disposition guarantees that head costs, especially transport cost, rental fees and security are considerably lower compared to other states.
“More fundamentally, the consumer market in Abia is expanding on two fronts. One, the population of the state is growing rapidly following the relocation of several households and businesses. Secondly, our public expenditure framework regularly puts money in the hands of individuals and business and increases the propensity to spend.
“In Abia, therefore, you will not only find a robust architecture but also encounter a rare level of optimism and implications for growth is boundless.”