Mr. Peter Mbah, the Enugu State Governor-Elect is in a hurry to take development to an unimaginable level in the state-christened Coal City. VANGUARD reports.Information Guide Nigeria
In this interview, the lawyer and multi-billionaire oil and gas magnate spoke on how he would eradicate poverty in Enugu, tackle insecurity, and what he would achieve in 100 days in office among others.
On his plan for the Enugu economy, he said:
If you look at the growth pattern in the last 24 years the growth has largely been incremental, marginal. We are going to grow the economy from $4.4 billion to $30 billion within the next eight years.
On how he will achieve zero poverty level in the state.
Other Top Stories:
- Court Stops Ondo Governor From Installing Monarch In Alade Idanre
- Your Petition Against Tinubu Is A Waste Of Time – Ned Nwoko Slams Peter Obi
- New Alaafin coronation next month – kingmaker
- Aisha Buhari makes case for children with special needs
We are going to achieve a zero percent rate in our poverty headcount index. By 2031, there will be zero poverty in Enugu. There will be eradication not reduction. It means that we are no longer going to have people living under extreme poverty or below the poverty line.
We are also unique in our strategic objectives because it’s one thing having these massive visions of growing the economy and lifting people out of poverty but another thing is to craft a strategy to be able to explain to the people how you intend to do that.
That was when we started talking about disrupting the current revenue model which obviously focuses on receipt of revenue from Abuja, going to Abuja at the end of every month to collect money from the federation account and coming back to Enugu to spend it. That money makes it difficult to able to optimally intervene across the critical sectors of our economy. We will deploy a disruptive innovation, critical alternative financing so that we can begin to generate funds from different sources.NYSC Portal
If we are going to grow at the levels we have proposed, the growth will not just come from the public sector. It has to come from constructive investment from the private sector. Private sector is going to play a critical role and that’s business. Businesses, as I always say to people on my team, are not Father Christmas, they want return on their investments. So, you are going to have to engage them, explain to them how you will provide the key enablers, key indicators for the ease of doing business, that means the infrastructure, security and also your policies on taxation, the ease of obtaining construction permit, title documents, and enforcing contacts.
There are a lot of core indicators under the ease of doing business that you must necessarily address, even the ease of setting up business and all that.
So we were clear about the different approaches that we are going to deploy to achieve all that.
How we plan to make Enugu an investment destination
Our mission is to make Enugu the most attractive state for investment.
That means a whole lot. It is also going out there to seek investment, do road shows, invite them for investment forum, market Enugu.
But you have to have selling points which you need to say you provided this or that and you can now come and see that Enugu is indeed the preferred location for investment.
Plans for young people
We intend to get them to enhance their skills to compete with their peers across the globe.
Our interest in ICT infrastructure is going to address that. We hope to be able to put in the pipeline a minimum of 40,000 young people every year that we are going to get productively and skillfully equipped with ICT skill. That means we are going to have a number of innovation incubation centres, we are going to have it as a cluster across the different senatorial zones.JAMB Result