Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Thursday said the reforms introduced in critical sectors were already yielding positive results with more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the last 16 months.
Ambode spoke at the maiden edition of “Lagos Global on TV”, a programme designed to inform Nigerians on the giant strides of the state government at driving investment and facilitating ease way of doing business in Lagos.
The governor said that the investments were more than what was achieved in the last 10 years.
He said his administration had remained committed to creating an enabling environment for investment to thrive, adding that the resolve informed the introduction of various reforms.
”When I won the election, one of my priorities was to see how to improve on the easy way of doing business in Lagos.
“I also believe that we needed to carry out some kind of public sector reforms to drive the vision.
”The vision is very simple, if we want to tackle the issue of bureaucracy in the civil service, we need to have a-24/7 one-stop shop office.
”We decided to come up with the office of Overseas Affairs and Investment, otherwise known as Lagos Global to facilitate investment, both from within and outside the country,” the governor said.
Ambode said that the state was willing and ready to partner with any investor that was ready to add value to the state and the people.
On some of the reforms, he said that his government had invested massively to improve the security structure, thus facilitating more investment.
”The security reform has created more job opportunities for people, while revenue generated has been judiciously utilised to embark on infrastructure renewal across the state.
”The reforms in the transport sector have brought about reduction in travel time, which has made Lagosians to be more productive and improve service delivery to the people,” Ambode said.
The governor also said that his administration was working on scaling up the identity card scheme for data, economic and financial planning, aside the N25 billion Employment Trust Fund (ETF) aimed at empowering entrepreneurs.
Earlier, his Special Adviser on Overseas Affairs and Investments, Prof. Ademola Abass, said that part of his office’s mandate was to bring FDI into Lagos, and also investment generated within the country.
He said Lagos, which had emerged as the fifth largest economy in Africa, has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that is bigger than Kenya and Ghana combined. (NAN)
