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| Inyang |
THE INDUSTRIES…ONLY GROUNDBREAKING?
Let me give make public a brief secret here. Having come from the corporate world to public leadership, the governor still personally sends e-mails to international and local investors, many of them, he has built working and personal relationships with over the years. Once they see his mails, they act on it immediately. That is the advantage of a global brand which the governor is. A company could receive loads of mails and not respond to any because they either do not know the identity or trust the identity. But there’s no single mail sent out to any investor or company by the personal e-mail address of the governor that doesn’t receive prompt reply within the official working hours of that day in any part of the world.
And we have seen those responses; at a time that the economy of the country is going down,, at a time that people don’t know what to do with foreign currency, we have seen investors coming into Akwa Ibom State while most other states are at a standstill. During the period he was SSG, Governor Udom had studied the landscape of Akwa Ibom and how he wants to intervene. So it didn’t take him time to start intervening in those areas. If you want to count the groundbreakings that he has done, the flagoffs of the roads, those roads are calculated; they are not spontaneous, they are calculated to be able to take those industries into the hinterland. That’s his own vision.
You can’t do groundbreaking today and construction starts today. There is a process. These things have to be explained to Akwa Ibom people because some persons are taking advantage of this gap in information or communication to lie to the people about government’s good intentions. If there’s no groundbreaking, there’s no industry. That’s number one. The acceptance to come and do groundbreaking by the investors is proof they have agreed to come in for business, there’s an MoU signed, there’s an agreement signed. When once these have been signed, you then go further and do the groundbreaking and get a C of O for a land. Nobody pulls out money from his pocket to do business. These are requirements from the bank. After the C of O, there are registrations to be done; there are forms to be filled; there are feasibility studies to be completed because you write feasibility study to see the viability of the project.
After the groundbreaking, the state gives you the C of O and you value the land that you are being given. Maybe you needed ten hectres and then the state says, we have evaluated this project and five hectres will be enough. If your feasibility study carried ten hectres initially, you need to now go and re-adjust and evaluate it for the monetary or equity participation of the state. So these are the things that have to go in before you put it to the bank for the bank to release money for you to now go and start the foundation.
Even the Front End Engineering Design (FEED), when you are designing a plan, you need the topography of that land so that you can place the layout of the plan on that land. So that if it is flat like the surface of a table, you know how to bring out your drainages, you know where the waste would go and all of that. If you don’t do the groundbreaking, you would not go to the extent of getting the land; so you need the survey, the state has to give you that survey and you even have to send your own surveyors to go and do your own topographic survey. That is what the designers would need to now place that industry on. And that is what you will need to go to the bank – whether World Bank, Central bank or commercial bank. They need all of those documentations. The people of Akwa Ibom should be patient. It is why Nigeria shies away from doing industries because there are lots of procedures in it and people are not patient enough to go through that. And if it is a World Bank project or a company that is listed in New York shares for example, they will need an international Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) that is bankable because World Bank stipulates that and the process of doing EIA takes two seasons (rainy season and dry season). An example is what is happening at Quantum petrochemical which is a World Bank project. So that result has to come out and written in a format to be acceptable internationally before submission. These are the procedures for releasing money for a particular project. But the good news is that all of these would be done, buildings will come up and some of the production would commence within two years. So it is not a about people asking why just after six months, after all the groundbreakings, there are no industries. Work is going on seriously and the governor is getting more hands on the job to hasten this process.
NIGERIA AS AN EXAMPLE
Let’s consider Nigeria in recent years, you can ask how many industries were established as a country. But the last administration in the state said we would do industries but let’s get the infrastructures first in place to attract people to come in. Having achieved that to a significant extent, anybody who comes in now comes in with peace of mind and is assured that Akwa Ibom is an investment destination of choice. At my own standard, I have had many friends who have come into the state with a view towards investing, not then to mention the goodwill and connections of an internationally acclaimed banker who has written so many feasibility studies that has brought in finances for people to establish their companies. This is one of the reasons the governor will definitely succeed.
The Appeal Court verdict is only slowing us but not stopping us. Our divine mandate is intact. There’s no way God will take you somewhere and abandon you. The emergence of Governor Udom was propelled by God. I knew the governor before he became SSG but it was while working with him as SSG that I noticed his contents and at that point, I was convinced that he is was the man to be. The governor is working hard to fulfill his promises and at the Supreme Court, we trust God to do his will; but if there’s any reason for another election, Governor Emmanuel will certainly return as governor of Akwa Ibom. He is clearly the best man for the job at the moment. It will be taking Akwa Ibom backwards if anything contrary happens and Akwa Ibom people are aware of this. And the issue of justice too; Uyo and Ikot Ekpene Districts have had their turns, Eket is barely six months in the office and you want to truncate it. No, it cannot be. I said it during the elections and I stand by it, if by default another design occurs, I will go with the governorship of Udom Emmanuel. I don’t want to be called to serve any other person. This is confidence and not pride and with this mindset, there is no reason why I would not work to win support for the success of this administration. Reasoning it the other way, it simply means that the confidence of Akwa Ibom people in Udom Emmanuel is unshaken. I can assure you that the governor will serve out his tenure.
TAX AND AKWA IBOM CIVIL SERVANTS
Let’s review the tax issue for which the government has been wrongly castigated. The press should have researched properly the tax percentage that civil servants in the employ of the federal government are paying. If it is not at par with that of states, what percentage are workers in other states paying? If they were paying four percent as at 2011 and there was that particular gazette or policy change and Akwa Ibom did not implement it, can you get that particular document and publish it in your news medium and be objective enough in reporting that civil servants are even the ones owing the government for about three years? It is this gap between facts and either mischief or falsehood that is creating a twisted impression about government. If the press could publish a breakdown of what civil servants in other states are paying, then there would be a clear case.
INDEPENDENT POWER PLANT
God has blessed Akwa Ibom but over the years, we didn’t have the right persons to bring out these resources for our gain. In Nigeria today, we are hearing about the IPP and something drives the IPP which is gas. As a member then of the Presidential Projects Assessment (ninety percent of the members were Hausas), I told them straight that we needed to change our strategy. Our region is the largest producer of gas where gas is situated, now why do you tap this gas from the Niger Delta to the north and while you are doing that, at every point you have a risk of losing some quantities of gas. Befor now, it was the Nigerian Gas Company that used to transport gas but owned by NLNG. Now, this one is producing and the other is transporting but the risk nobody wants to take.
What we call the Gas Purchase Agreement, who would sign? Is it the Nigerian Gas Company who said they are not the producers but only transporting it or the NLNG which would say they are not the transporter? The risk now lies on the person or vendor transporting it. Now, we are suffering from power issues but you would have produced the power here by putting the turbines here, drive it and then take it to anywhere; once you get it to the high tension, it goes into the national grid. And so we can become a major industry in the production of electricity. This is one of the key things Governor Udom is doing in making sure that a lot of things that were wrong in the power sector is being corrected. We are trying to bring in a lot of people for industries for petrochemicals, refineries, gas companies and people who would take that gas, refine it, etc.; Fertilizer is derived from gas. There’s an industry we are discussing with now and they need 40mega watts of power for itself alone. These are issues Akwa Ibom need to understand and not be swayed away by the publications of falsehood.
PROGRESS ON IBOM AIRPORT
When I came in, in the year 2007, you would agree that there was no airport. We met a partly cleared runway as some parts of it were not cleared. I was Special Assistant then and Dyncorp was the company in charge of the project. The company was working, moving as if the project was not meant to commence in the next five years. Their pace was not encouraging because the mode of the contract was not right. You pay somebody three thousand dollars in a day and why would the company want to finish such a project. The structure of that contract was simply not right.
When we came in, we tried to push them to move faster and they said, no, we shouldn’t push them and that we didn’t even have the supervisory right according to contract to supervise them. A committee was consequently set up and the former Governor, Senator Akpabio, one day said he wanted to land a plane on September 23, 2009. That was one of my biggest challenges on the job. During a meeting, most of the members said, you know it is not possible; I said sir, we can achieve it. That was what spurred us and we began working at the airport day and night. Because Dyncorp was not comfortable with us, they had to leave. And then we had a runway. We did the MRO but completed it much later. As it is now, we are looking for operators. There are certain indicators that you need before you come in to take up the operations. You need to look at the aircraft type that you want to do or service, you need to look at the number of fleet in that particular country; we have expanded it to include the region because this region does not have any sort of garage or hangers to service that. We are in serious talks with company now because the trend has changed. People want to save the foreign currency.
I did a presentation to the presidential committee on national carrier, it is not for us to preempt the outcome but they were very happy that there is one hanger in Nigeria that is almost ready. If Nigeria wants to do airline, our facility would be used because for you to have a particular fleet like that, you need a serviceable hanger and there’s none in Nigeria. Things are beginning to fall in place. We started the international terminal, the current governor is having the idea of turning the airport into a mega city. This is an expanded version of the airport where with a five-star hotel where business can come and run and not for air travels only. People would come in there, sleep there and do business there. The investors, when they come in, instead of getting down to town, the local contractors can come and have meetings with them there and they would fly out again.
We are developing the cargo facility. Discussions are going on, we have signed an MoU with some companies already. Anyone that favours us, we will start something next year. It is still a hub that we are hoping to expand. There’s no way that you are going to have these numerous industries that you will not have a very active airport. We need the cargo facility because equipment for construction of most of the industries are going to be flown in. They can’t fly in to Port Harcourt airport or wherever to be driven down here. They are going to land it here.
IBAKA SEAPORT
We are the fastest growing deep seaport in the country in terms of procedures. In 2007 after I came in, we went to sit down with Lekki Deep Seaport and they were already up, like five years ahead and we were just starting. Now, it is either we are at par or we have overtaken them. There is a lot of procedure before you go into the actual construction but where we are today with the current signing of agreement between Akwa Ibom Government and Gimaps – who are the transaction advisers, we have hardened the outline business case; we are going for the full business case now. the full business case means that you are going to come out with an operator, with a financial closure for that particular business. We are at that point now, we have surveyed the land where we are going to do the deep seaport and government has awarded the initial road that traffic or equipment would be taken to the land. We are going on very fast in that aspect. By 2017, machines will begin to enter for construction.
Remember the type of seaport we have is driven by the industrial estate there and then we are naturally located. It is going to be a transshipment bay where bigger ships that have never come to this region would begin to come. We have that advantage and the government of the day is pushing hard. As SSG, the governor was part of the administerial development team (federal government arm) which I was also a member. So he knows the details of what he wants to achieve, that’s why it was the first committee he inaugurated when he came into office. And I am happy with the speed at which the project is moving.
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