OGUN HAS ATTRACTED OVER $140M IN INVESTMENTS - INFORMATION COMMISSIONER

Amid economic recession rocking the country, Ogun State Government said it has attracted investments worth over $140 billion in the last five years.

The state’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Dayo Adeneye who revealed this in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP, said the state has continued to be investors’ haven because of its policies, infrastructural development drive and huge investments in security.

Adeneye said, “Ogun State is the most secured state in the country. No visitor not to talk of investors will be willing to come to state where you are not sure of your security, where you can’t sleep with your two eyes closed. Not to talk of investing in the state. We have invested heavily in security, we have rejig our architecture on security,  Ogun is now very attractive to these investors.

“We have the manpower that they are looking for, we have the land, the space which they are looking for which may not be available in the neighbouring state. We are the gateway state and you can’t access other parts of the country without passing through the state. We have a one stop shop where they could access all that they needed.

“ When we came in, in 2011, I think the world bank rated Ogun number 35 with ease of doing business in the country but now the last report in 2014 we are among the first five and it has stayed like that, those are some of the reasons why we have been able to attract investors to the state.

“In the last five years we have about 118 new investors in the state who have invested between $200million and $ 1.2 billion each. You could safely say that we have quite a lot of manufacturers that export from the state. We have a number of ceramic products to vegetables, the local cement and the quarry that we have here. We also have our bi annual investor’s forum which we used to showcase what we have to the outside world and that has kept them coming.”

The commissioner said, the state had also keyed into diversification programme of the federal government to move from oil to other sectors of the economy particularly in the area of Agriculture.

He said,” We have always looked for other areas to generating income and agriculture is one key area that we have tap into now. if you visit some of our farm settlement you will find Phd holders at Owowo the last time I was there I counted 15 young Phd holders that are into husbandry, farming and are doing fine producing we believe in agriculture, our neighbouring state has a population of close to 20 million somebody has to feed them and we are praying and hoping that it will be Ogun State.

“We want to be able to feed not just Ogun State but our neighbouring States and Nigeria. We are investing heavily in agric too. The Agric Minister has been here severally and others involved in Agric. What we need is assistance from relevant government agencies.”

On the recently launched School Children Feeding Programme, Adeneye said that state government would do everything possible to carter for the young ones adding that it would soon be extended to all primary school pupils in the state.

He said the feeding programme is for pupils in Primary 1 to three pointing out that it would soon be extended to others.

‘It is not yet in all the primary schools, we are doing Primary one to three to start with, we are starting with about 500 schools, it is a gradual process and you should remember that all the vendors have to be trained in how to cook and how it should be presented and serve to the children so we are launching in batches and we hope that in the next couple of weeks the entire student populace would be captured,’ he said.

He pleaded with resident of border towns in Ogun particularly those in Alagbole and Ajuwon to bear with the state government adding that the ongoing road and bridges constructions would soon be completed.

‘We have been urging our people in that area to pay their taxes where they reside which are Ogun State. That been said you can see that we have started those projects. We are building five bridges along that axis. The least completed is about 60-70 percent complete. The road according to the engineer wont takes more than three months. It is those bridges that has been given us a headache and everybody knows that it consume money.

‘We started those bridges because we are very ambitious to develop the state but along the line things nosedive and that is where we find ourselves as a country, things slow down a bit but now we have partners who are coming in to assist us so we are going to resuscitate those projects and that is why we have asked our citizens there to be patient with us. The previous administration that saw the need of that axis didn’t touch it because they knew that it would consume a lot of money, nothing less than N70 to N80 billion to complete that road. But it shall be done,’ he said.