Bilesanmi Olalekan
29 June 2008
interview
Lagos — Femi Boyede is the Director General of the Ekiti State Enterprise Development Agency (EEDA) which makes him a public servant. What however differentiates this former World Bank consultant is his guts to say it the way it is. For example, he would tell you that the former governor, Ayo Fayose, did well
in the area of road construction but performed woefully in other areas. This month, his agency is organising the second Ekiti State Economic Summit in Ado Ekiti, the state capital, to further explain to its partners the enormous benefits in doing business even as the state launches the country's first ethanol plant
CAN you give us an insight into how Ekiti State Economic Summit came about?
The first Ekiti State Economic Summit was held in October 2000 in Ikogosi, Ekiti State. The reports that were turned in from that summit indicated that a lot can be achieved if more of such events are organised in the state. The critical conclusion was the desirability of regular repetition of that event. Unfortunately, there has been a gap since the 2000 edition. That is the reason we held a second edition from June 25-27, 2008.
What are we looking at in the second economic summit?
We are looking at a full variety of programmes. People misconceived the summit as a platform to showcase an end to a success. But we are looking at it as the platform to showcase the available opportunities. Whatever looks like a deficiency we want to put it on the table as investment opportunity. Obviously, when you look at infrastructure deficiency, people complained that the roads are bad.
That is an opportunity for the road contractor who is interested, who has the business acumen to see the traffic that is passing through Ekiti State now and say, 'okay, I want to partner with the state, I want to build a good home, build a good estate, and so on. Secondly, we are talking about water. The economic summit will give us a platform to talk about the water revolution, while highlighting the investment opportunities therein.
What will be the impact of this summit on the indigenes of the state, the state government, and the partners from the private sector who will be coming to attend the event?
Well, let's look at the impact on the people of the state from various angles. We estimated about 1,000 participants from different parts of the country and the world, in Ekiti State for three days. Look at the economic impact. The sachet water seller will tend to sell 1,000 units more, food seller would sell 1,000 plates more, the taxi driver would have 1,000 passengers extra for those three days, the hoteliers would have 1,000 rooms, so occupancy would increase.
Business would boom during the period. So there is immediate economic impact. But, above all, the core objective of the summit was to change and secure direct investment in the state, to lift the industrial capacity of the state, to lift the business acumen and horizon of the people of the state. The objective was to take us a step further in our economic advancement agenda. Therefore, if any or all of these were achieved, the overall end user of the result of the summit are the indigenes of the state.
How will the summit affect the state government?
The state government is supposed to kick-start economic development strategies, agendas and policies. In this case, the state government says, 'hey, I can't do it alone.' Obviously the available resources cannot match the requirement of the state in terms of industrial development, infrastructure, even providing basic amenities for the people of the state. So the state government benefits from this directly because the relevant players in each of the sectors of the economy are being attracted to the state. There are immediate opportunities and I will give you a very simple example of this. In 2001, I organised the first, and, as far as I know, the only successful Nigerian minerals event in London in Ted City Town Hall.
At that meeting, we were able to bring an American investor who came to prospect and explore the opportunities of mining in Nigeria and he was particularly interested in lead ore. Lead ore is in Abakaliki. So, if there is any mining operation going on in Abakaliki today, it is as a result of the summit I organised in the U.K.
The state government will be able to secure the much needed support and partnership to execute its projects and programmes. I can tell you that in he next few weeks, the state would be launching the country's first ethanol plant. In fact, we have started, it is just that we have not hit the commercial quantity we are looking at. That is why it has taken this far but in the next few weeks, we shall go full blast.
Who are your development partners?
Again, this is in different phases. First, the international and multinational organisations - UNDP, UNIDO, UNICEF, SMEDAN, Bank of Industry, USAID, etc. Each of these organisations has a specific development support programme. They don't ordinarily know what Ekiti is. They don't know what our priorities are? It is an opportunity to bring them together in one place.
In that kind of short time, we have to bring all these development partners together, to present to them our shopping basket and then each of them is able to react to it within the frame work of their own programme and then get back to us. For them, it is an opportunity to identify the partnership opportunities in Ekiti State and properly key in their programmes. Again, for them, it is programme conceptualisation and development. Beyond that, it is an opportunity for corporate mileage especially for our supporters, our sponsors.
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