Go ernor Alex Otti and members of the PPP And Investment Promotion Board
Abia gets public private partnership and investment promotion board
Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, has inaugurated the management team of Abia State Public Private Partnership and Investment Promotion Board
Inaugurating the Board on Thursday, October 24, 2024, at his Umuehim Nvosi country home in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of the State, Governor Otti said that the delay in inaugurating the board was deliberate as a lot needed to be done to get the State ready for the kind of things they would be doing, which is investment promotion and seeking partnerships with the Private Sector.
Governor Otti re-echoed his earlier statements that investors are smart and can access information thousands of miles away without visiting a place to make informed investment decisions.
“I have always said that the privateiv sector and investors are very, very smart. They think with their feet, they can get information that are hundreds of thousands of miles away sitting in the comforts of their homes”.
“If you have not fixed your environment, if you have not made your environment conducive to attract businesses; to attract investments, they will not come. And, if they come and discover that they made a mistake, which they hardly do, or notice that what they thought was there is not there, they will bolt with their feet”.
“For us, creating a conducive environment was much more important than looking for investments,” the Governor said.
Dr. Otti referred to a recently published report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which puts Abia as the third investment destination in Nigeria after Lagos State and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territoryin terms of numbers.
Recall that in a recent report by the NBS, between June 2023 and June 2024, Abia was among the six states and the only state in the Southeast with foreign investments totaling $150.9 million.
The Governor explained that these investments came on their own as the investors took note of what his administration was doing.
“These are investments that just came on the basis of what they know we are doing, not because we went to campaign. We have not campaigned to anybody; we don’t even have investment pitch. We will be requiring you to sit down, and draw up a pitch,” he charged the tram.
He told the PPP and Investment Promotion Board that they were being inaugurated at the right time and have their jobs cut out, noting that they were men of skills whose appointments were based on merit and competence.
In his vote of thanks, the team leader/Director-General of the Board, Mr. Chinedum Chijioke, thanked the Governor for considering them worthy to serve, promising that they will live up to expectations.
He assured that the team would ride on the momentum Governor Otti has created to make Abia the preferred investment destination in Nigeria and Africa.
He expressed happiness that investors were already coming without any pitch.
Other members of the board are Pastor Gabriel Ekpendu, Uchenna Nnaomah andNkemdirim Alex Okoroafor. Dr. Collins Ulu is the Secretary/Legal Adviser of the Board.
