Two years may not mean much in the life of a country or a government agency but it certainly means a lot at the Oil and Gas Export Free Zones Authority (OGFZA) under the leadership of Obong Umana Okon Omana.
Yes, it is slightly over two years ago that President Muhammadu Buhari made a masterstroke decision by appointing the Akwa Ibom technocrat to head a parastatal that was anything but spectacular in spite of having a major role to play in an industry that is the mainstay of the nation’s economy.
Umana may have had a distinguished public service career in Akwa Ibom State spanning 32 years where he rose to the pinnacle as Secretary to the State Government (SSG) but he also has an unbelievable executive training that he has since brought to bear in his first major appointment at the federal level.
Aside from attending a Senior Executive Programme at the prestigious London Business School in 2009, he had before then attended a similar course at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business in New York.
So, it should not be a real surprise that he is excelling at OGFZA in such a short time.
A clear testament to the new lease of life in Nigeria’s oil and gas free zones is the fact that within few months of unveiling a road map to guide OGFZA’s operations, the agency was ranked the 6th amongst 44 government agencies in terms of compliance with the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s policy on Ease of Doing Business in 2017.
The agency went a step better by topping the ranking in 2018 and in doing so sent a clear signal that indeed it would no longer be business as usual under Umana’s watch.
Before the coming of Umana Umana, Nigeria had really not fared well so much so that it was classified as one of the least competitive in a 2016 investment.
But the 2017 World Free Zones convention in Doha, Qatar, provided a platform for Umana to set the record straight now that the cogs in the wheel of progress of the oil and gas trade zones had been removed.
He seized the moment at the Doha convention in a paper entitled “Cluster and FDI promotion strategies – Nigeria in Perspective” which showcased the true fact about Nigeria as an investment destination that cannot be ignored.
Umana was emphatic that there are now changes in investment indicators in the last two years due to the Buhari administration’s business friendly policies from what it used to be to a brisk dynamism one capable of responding to the global demand for speed and efficiency.
One major step is that OGFZA under Umana Umana has cut the turnaround time for the licensing of a new business in the free zones from 14 days to 28 days, and the time for license renewal from 14 days to 48 hours.
Another indicator that the old lethargic order is gradually giving way to a new dispensation of dispatch in business transaction is the strengthening of OGFZA law.
On assumption of office, Umana’s first assignment was to lobby the National Assembly to review the obsolete act to meet the 21st century global demand.
It is therefore not surprising that almost exactly a year ago OGFZA wrote the finance ministry that it could conveniently meet its staff salaries and overheads from internally generated revenue (IGR).
It therefore requested that the Federal Government to suspend the funding of the recurrent expenditure of OGFZA from treasury funds.
OGFZA said in a statement that financial independence that permits self-funding was one of the six goals that Authority set for itself under the Umana-led management in its three-year roadmap which became operational at the beginning of last year.
The memo by Umana read: “Following the measures taken by the new management of OGFZA to increase IGR, I write to inform the Honourable Minister of Finance that with effect from the 2018 financial year, the Authority will no longer depend on treasury funding to meet her recurrent expenditure requirements (salaries and overheads). The recurrent expenditure of the Authority will be funded with our IGR.”
This was barely 18 months after he assumed office and has since earned local and international accolades, including but not limited to one by the Financial Times of London which ranked Nigerian’s oil and gas free zone at Onne as the most successful in Africa.
Surely, OGFZA is on track and Obong Umana Umana has proved himself as a round peg in a round hole, a very business minded Chief Executive Officer who leads by example.
Aite Ehiemua, Principal Media Officer (Political Matters), Office of the MD, OGFZA
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