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Oyo State government has started looking for corporate bodies and private investors capable of partnering with it to revamp some of the moribund companies in the state.
The Executive Assistant to the governor on Investment Promotion and Public-Private Partnership, Hon. Segun Ogunwuyi disclosed this on Thursday, during an ‘on the spot assessment’ to the locations of most of the abandoned companies around the state.
Among the locations visited by Ogunwuyi and the team from the state’s Bureau of Investment Promotion and Public-Private Partnership ( BIPP/PPP) are the Pacesetter Asphalt and Quarry plant, Ijaye; Agbowo shopping complex; Nigeria marble mining company, Igbeti.
The team also visted Eruwa Cashew farm plantation; Cashew nuts orocessing company, Eleyele; Oyo State paper mill warehouse, Oluyole; Conpole Nigeria Ltd, Ibadan; Trans Motel, Jericho; Trans wonderland (formerly Trans Amusement Park), Ibadan and some manor houses in notable areas of the state.
Ogunwuyi said the governor directed the bureau to embark on the assessment exercise as the state was in a hurry to bring in investors to partner the government towards returning the companies to what they used to be in the era of military administration and the late Chief Bola Ige.
His words: “This assessment exercise is as a result of a directive from the governor that we have to know their conditions so as to know how to shop for capable and efficient investors that can make a turn-around of these companies to yield profit for business, government revenue as well as provide multiple job opportunities.
“Most of these companies were created in the late 70s and early 80s by military administrations and the Bola Ige regime, but were later abandoned by successive governments till date. We cannot be paying lip service to the problem of low IGR and high unemployment when we have these assets wasting away. That is why the governor would rather partner with local and foreign investors to bring them back and have a new economic dawn in Oyo State.”
Recall that Governor Seyi Makinde, during his inauguration speech on May 29, vowed to engender a turn-around of the state’s commercial status by partnering with strong business interests within and outside the country to grow the state’s economy and boost its internally-generated revenue as well as provide jobs for the teeming youth.