When the Malam Nasir El-Rufai-led government showcased the first edition of the Kaduna Economic and Investment summit, many did not know the investment potential it will bring to the state and how it will reposition the private sector to develop the state’s potential.
Today, after seven years, the state has an investment portfolio for $4.488 billion, and is fast becoming the investment destination of choice.
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Daily Trust on Sunday reports that the state has been able to raise its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from N11bn in 2015 to N52.8bn in 2021.
Our correspondent further reports that the governor launched the Ease of Doing Business Charter 2022 and signed the Subsidiary Loan Agreement for the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone with the Federal Ministry of Finance.
What Kaduna has achieved in seven years – El Rufai
In the last seven years, Kaduna State Government has attracted a total investment portfolio of $488bn comprising actualized and announced investments, and has created 75, 750 direct and indirect jobs, Governor Nasir El-Rufai had said.
He said the government has also been providing the conducive environment for the private sector to drive the economy, by embarking on numerous policy actions and reforms, including the hosting of the yearly Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit (KadInvest) since 2016.
Governor Nasir El Rufai, while speaking in his presentation at the just concluded 7th edition of the three-day Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit (KadInvest 7.0) which commenced on Thursday, gave a recap of what his administration achieved since inception. He explained why investors should invest in Kaduna State, citing abundance of natural resources, a productive workforce, steady economic growth and being the gateway to the northern market.
According to him, “Kaduna State is also the most improved state in 2018 Ease of Doing Business Subnational report by the World Bank and it has a very investor-friendly environment, it is also the third biggest consumer market in Nigeria, the third most populous state in Nigeria and has 52 per cent of Nigeria’s consumer market.
“Besides, Kaduna State is rich in mineral resources as it has over 25 non-oil mineral deposits, including gold, iron ore and marble.”
He disclosed that the government has handed over Zaria Pharmaceuticals to private investors who will produce syringes, intravenous fluids and specimen bottles, saying the revamped company is expected to create 200 direct and over 1,000 indirect jobs.
He added, “This year, the Technology City was commissioned at Barnawa, with CoLab Innovation Campus as anchor tenant, the manufacturing facility of AMA Medical, a plant built to produce intravenous fluids, was also commissioned and Zipline’s operations for instant delivery of medical consumables to health facilities was commissioned at Pambegua, the first of three planned distribution hubs in the state.”
Justifying the theme of KadInvest 7.0, which is “Building a Resilient Economy”, the governor noted that it is necessary for the government to be innovative, especially in the wake of the global economic slowdown and to sustain reforms into the next administration.
He noted that states should begin to innovate and become more resilient against global economic shocks and begin to harness their comparative advantages to increase internally generated revenues and job creation to withstand these crises.
Unbundle NNPC to address economic crisis – Khalifa Muhammad Sanusi II
The 14th Emir of Kano and the Vice Chairman of the Kaduna State Investment Promotion Agency (KADIPA), Khalifa Muhammad Sanusi II, has stressed the need to unbundle the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) in order to get the country out of economic crisis.
Muhammad Sanusi while delivering his paper ‘Improving Sub-nationals Resilience Against Global Economic Stock’ said the NNPC should be unbundled into different companies for effective and efficient management of the country’s oil sector.
“NNPC is a money pit instead of a cash cow; it should be unbundled and disbanded. More can be had from simply levying royalties and CIT on private players following models like that of Petronas and Petrobras,” he said.
He described the oil sector as ‘Nigeria’s Curse’ adding, “Beyond the challenging global context, Nigeria has problems entirely of its own making where oil revenues which were once the lifeblood of the federal government, have been in secular decline for over a decade. This has been happening regardless of the oil price environment.”
He lamented that the federal government is set to collect just $2.9bn in oil proceeds this year, compared with nearly $60bn in 2011 saying, “This is one of the biggest oversights in public financial management anywhere in emerging markets.”
According to him, “In some ways, Nigeria’s problems are not a failure of the system because it is working as one would expect, but a failure of design and a failure of implementation.
“In the current environment, the first and most obvious problem is the existence of the fuel subsidy and opportunities this creates for fraud, the average daily fuel consumption in Nigeria (by the NNPC’s admission) is 66 million litres per day, and on some days as high as 100 million litres per day. This is roughly equivalent to Indonesia (2019), a country with nearly three times Nigeria’s GDP per capita, two times the number of vehicles and 2.5 times the size of the road network.
“A different way to benchmark Nigeria’s consumption is to look at PMS consumed by each vehicle on a daily basis, on this metric, Nigeria even outranks Iran, a country with three to four times its level of wealth and a road network that is three times the size on a per capita basis and this is not just the impact of subsidies because in Iran, official fuel price is five US cents per litre, less than 15 per cent of the pump price in Nigeria.”
He attributed the ‘relentless rise’ in the US dollar as being the bigger problem in most of Africa, causing widespread and painful currency adjustment, which is a more important driver of inflation than the underlying moves in commodity prices.
“Since the start of the Ukraine war, crude oil prices are 5 per cent lower, rice prices are 12 per cent higher, and wheat prices are flat, the trade-weighted US dollar however is 17 per cent stronger in this period, the sharpest upward move since the early 1980s, this is what is causing the pain in emerging markets.”
He stated that only 50 per cent of states generated enough recurrent revenue to cover wages, overheads and debt service and recommended that states advocate for changes that do not rely on fixing failures of system design and policy implementation at the federal level.
He urged states to find ways to free themselves from the effects of leakages and unorthodox policies at the federal level and instead push for new and independent powers of taxation.
Kaduna has emerged as leading destination for FDI – PMB
President Muhammadu Buhair said Kaduna State has emerged as one of the leading destinations for foreign direct investment for Nigeria.
PMB, who was represented by the Minister of State, Industry, Trade and Investment, Ambassador Maryam Katagun, commended the state government’s efforts in demonstrating its investment potential.
He said the success of sub-national in attracting investment, creating jobs and increasing internally generated revenue, is critical to the success of the entire country saying, “The FG actively supports the efforts of its sub-national to promote development in the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.”
Government alone can’t drive development – Deputy Gov.
The Deputy Governor of Kaduna State and Chairman of the KADIPA Board, Dr. Hadiza Sabuwa Balarabe, said government alone cannot drive development; hence the state government has built a strong partnership with the private sector to drive quality change and bring development to the state.
She assured that KADIPA and the state government will continue to do everything it can to maintain the state as the most business-friendly environment in Nigeria.
As part of activities for KADInvest 7.0, the governor commissioned the Galaxy mall – an 11, 000 square meter shopping mall located by Murtala Square with Shoprite as the anchored tenant, and also the FaLGates rice mill – a N2.5bn agric agro-allied company that is expected to process 300 metric tons of rice per day and 100, 000 metric tons per annum.
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