Anambra state
said it has in the past 16 months attracted over $2.6 billion investments. This
is just as the state said it had taken steps to increase its Internally
Generated Revenue (IGR) to N3 billion monthly.
The Governor,
Anambra state, Mr. Willie Obiano, said this at the weekend, when he spoke at
the 2015 Distinguished Guest Lecture Series at the Lagos Business School. These
achievements, he said, were attained through the creation of the Anambra State
Investment Promotion and Protection Agency (ANSIPPA) which is the one-stop
investment boutique of Anambra
State.
He said the
agency which is headed by renown investment bankers and business analysts, has
the singular mandate of attracting investments and fast-tracking the process of
investing in Anambra State.
Obiano said:
"ANSIPPA has turned out to be one of the visionary initiatives of my
administration; attracting investments valued at $2.4 billion in the past 16
months. These investments cut across agriculture, trade and commerce,
hospitality, housing, electricity generation, health and oil and gas.
"While we
are expecting more investors to join the queue, Anambra has so far signed up
Coched Farm Limited, Delfarm Limited, Ekcel Farms Limited, Grains & Silos
Limited, Joseph Agro Limited, Lynden Farms Limited, Integrated Farms Limited,
all in the agricultural sector. In the Transport Sector, we signed on IRS
Consult Nigeria and Temple SYC Inspection.
“In the
hospitality sector, we signed on Cardinal Developers and Trust. In the power
and energy sector, we signed on Falcon Corporation and UDIPPCO. Also, in the
trade and commerce sector, we have signed on Africa Capital and Business
Support. In the industrial sector, we signed on Richbon Nigeria and in the
housing sector, we signed on Efab Properties and Cotabs Engineering. As our
profile continues to rise in the investment community, more investments will
certainly come to Anambra State.”
He said a core
mandate of the agency was to conduct due diligence on prospective investors,
procure the necessary documentation in record time and make the entire process
of settling down for business easy and memorable to all class of investors.
In terms of
raising the state's IGR, he said when he took over the reins of leadership in
March last year, the state organised a strategic retreat for his executive
council members. According to him, during the retreat, they analysed the
Nigerian economy and foresaw that oil prices would crash to about $55 per
barrel in less than one year.
He added: “We
predicted that if oil prices crashed, it would bring down our federal
allocation by 50 per cent. Having figured that out, we began to work on
improving our IGR. We quickly restructured our revenue-earning sources and
introduced the use of ICT in revenue collection. This ensured greater
efficiency and transparency in our accounting processes.”
“We deployed
biometric machines to capture the profiles of all civil servants and weed out
ghost workers from our databank. That plugged all leakages in the sector and
saved the state a large sum of money."
He further added:
“It was a similar foresight that made us re-organise our revenue structures and
improve our monthly revenue generation from the N500 million mark, we inherited
to N1.3 billion within a period of one year. And this is just the beginning.
"Our target
is to hit the N3 billion mark in monthly revenue, and we shall not relent until
we achieve this. We are looking at other creative ways that can increase the
current figure without losing grip on our ambition of becoming the most loved
administration in the history of Anambra State.”