The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu state, Chief Uchenna Nnaji, Nwakaibie, yesterday announced that if elected his administration would establish Enugu State Development Bank with a capital base of N250 billion.
Nnaji, who made this known while presenting his programme before the Enugu Business Community under the aegis of Enugu Chamber of Commerce Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA) and the Enugu Coalition for Business and Professional Association (ECOBA), said his administration would revitalize abandoned industries, build new ones in partnership with the private sector and reduce unemployment to minim level in four years.
“I know that funding is a big problem, government will be a catalyst in industrial development, we will support small, medium and micro enterprises to grow.
“To this end, we will set up Enugu State Development Bank which will be registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, Security and Exchange Commission and other relevant bodies.
“Government will own 10% equity in the Development bank while the people of Enugu state and other private investors will own 90% of equity. So I don’t have problem with funding of our projects, we will use the development bank to catalyse industrial development.
“Any business we invest in, we do so with the private sector by investing 10% but when the business begins to do well, we will divest and move into another business,” he said.
Nnaji who described himself as a complete “Enugu boy”, having done his primary, secondary and university education (University of Nigeria Nsukka, UNN) in the state before venturing out for business.
The APC guber candidate took a swipe at the guber candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Peter Mbah, who he said prides himself as oil and gas guru, noting that the PDP candidate was a mere oil marker who came upon sudden money and used same to build oil tank farms.
Nnaji said that he is the one into real oil and gas business because he owns substantial equities in oil wells in Nigeria and also equity in refineries outside Nigeria.
“I’m the only business man running for governorship; PDP candidate is not a business man, he did not grow in business he only jammed money and started oil marketing.
“Those of us in oil and gas business know what it means, building oil tank farm is only an arm of oil and gas marketing… We are in oil and gas business including owning equities in oil blocs and refineries outside Nigeria,” Mbah said.
He catalogued problems of Enugu state to include mismanagement of resources multiple taxation and lack of capacity by government officials to deliver on their mandate.
He promised to fix the perennial water problem in the state by revitalizing the the seven water projects.
Nnaji promised to create 10 hectares of land in each senatorial districts of the state and use government resources to prepare the land and allocate same to young people and other farmers to cultivate with provision of financial support and improved seedlings and machineries, so that the state can produce for local and export.
He stated that he would work to reduce the crippling dept piled up by the PDP government even as he would reorder the budget of the state to ensure 70% capital and 30% recurrent expenditure as against the current situation where the reverse is the case.
Nnaji said he would build power generating plants to generate 50 megawatts of electricity combination of sources including solar and wind energy.
Other areas of his administration’s intervention would be to retrain civil servants, increase the minimum wage; and revitalize the educational system in the state.
He said he would tackle insecurity through creation of jobs and increases economic activities in the state while the security system in the state will be reorganised and funded heavily, using retired security personnel in the state.
