Daily Independent (Lagos)
Emeka Alex-Duru
7 January 2009
interview
Basking on the excitement of a successful outing in the 2008 Calabar Christmas Carnival, governor of Cross River State, Senator Liyel Imoke spoke with journalists, on his administration's strategies for harnessing the annual fiesta for the development of the State, his challenges in office and his expectations in the years ahead. EMEKA ALEX-DURU, GROUP LIFE EDITOR, was at the session. Excerpts:
How would you assess the 2008 Festival?
There was much more confidence after the uncertainty of the previous edition as to whether it would hold or not. We are now at a stage where if anybody says he is not doing the carnival, he is in trouble. So, we will improve on it next time. We think even the VIP stand that we introduced this time, we think by next festival, we will sell tickets. For those who want to be in the VIP stand, you can buy your ticket on the Internet and know what services that will be provided to you at the VIP stand. Each year we try and build on the experience. Security wise, if you are going to the stadium, next edition, we are going to have all those metal barriers in front of the VIP so that the crowd doesn't come into it. There are a number of things that we are doing. Each year we have to improve significantly on them.
But the hotels in the city do not seem to be prepared for the pressure occasioned by the festival
The thing about the hotels is that there is a rush to build them. There is no service. The service is still very poor and we can't sustain that. So, it is important for us that we get it right with the service. That is why we are setting up a Tourism Institute (TI) here. TI will be the first to actually train hoteliers. We are working with Nigerian Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR). So we have an accredited facility where people can get training rather than people just getting engaged. And the hotels themselves will train, not just waiters but line managers, chefs, etcetera. We must understand that we are committed to this hospitality. I reckon it will take us another five to ten years to get there but we cannot be weary. We must continue to spend to get to where we are going.
What are you doing about grading of the hotels?
The tourism bureau has a department for that. They are supposed to grade the hotels. They are supposed to see that the hotels are complying with our standards.
In what areas do you think the Federal Government can come in to improve and move the tourism industry forward to the next level in the state?
There are number of things that cannot be left to federal character, and one of them is tourism. Somebody was telling me River State is doing this, Akwa Ibom is doing that and so on. I said no problem, they may have the resources; there are few things that God has given them. I said no matter what they have, they cannot create an Obudu Mountain, you understand. There is no nothing you can do about it. You can't duplicate it. So, if the federal government says for tourism we are picking two states that have the natural God-given environment for tourism development, we happen to have this Calabar River. You have the waterfront, you have the mountain; you have the forest. All those things are God-given. They are not available anywhere. So, when you look at all that, the natural place to promote Nigeria's tourism as where you can come in and enjoy yourselves, you pick Cross River.
That's where the tourism master-plan was supposed to come...
Exactly. You know what efforts went into that tourism master-plan? I was in the Federal Government then. When that master-plan was being presented the people that developed it, said that the greatest challenge to tourism in Nigeria are the Nigerians; that in all their work, they had never seen where the people of a country spoke so badly of their country; that Nigerians speak so badly of their country; that anywhere you see two or three Nigerians sitting and talking they are criticising government and Nigeria, then you want to promote tourism; that they impression they have of Nigeria is far better than the impression Nigerians have of their country. So, there are a number of challenges, there are a number of hurdles to contend with if you want to promote tourism. For example to get a visa into Nigeria for a tourist, it is a tug of war.
I think we are very lucky with a lot of things that happen in Cross River State now. We are just continuing from the last administration because of the relationship between the former governor and me. Long before, we decided getting together in Lagos. We had group meetings in my house that came up with an economic blueprint in 1996 - myself, Donald Duke, the current managing director of Tinapa and a few of us. We had a small group in 1996. What we saw was that we had so much potential, but we had elders who simply bugged us down with our local ethnic issues. So a few of us who were young and daring then came together. So if you ask us now, who is our political godfather, who is Donald's political godfather? Who is Liyel's political godfather? There is nobody. And if you remember, Donald's first election he won by a very narrow margin because we came against the established powers. But in developing that vision and implementing it, we were all part of it. So, anybody that thinks that Liyel will come and his focus will be different from tourism, then that person needs to understand the beginning of things, how we started. Yes, there are a few projects that were not developed at that time, Tinapa for instance, but the general focus is still the same. The issue of the Obudu mountain for instance was already concluded then. So, it is that vision that we continue to work with and the players remain largely the same.
Are there plans to sustain the vision?
I think, if we can sustain it, not just through my own tenure but also through another person who has been part of all of these. Continuity is very important. But in Nigeria we try to change things, you know what I mean: 'won't you come and do your own? Why must you finish the one that your predecessor started? People must know you for your own.' No, we don't have that. We are planting more trees; we are making the place greener, we are doing more in the area of infrastructure. Like in urban renewal programme, we look and say okay fine, where are we? How far did the Duke administration go with the urban renewal programme? And we are taking it from there and moving on. Hopefully, if I don't finish with that, the next person, by the grace of God, can come in and continue with this. So, my focus to make Tinapa work, and I reckon it will take five to six years to get Tinapa to where it should be, but once you get it working, it will create so much opportunity to the people. We are looking beyond just the shops. Like we want, for instance, because of what we have now in Tinapa, you can imagine what the tailors from Cross River State are making from the carnival. After this 2009, by 2010, all carnivals attire must be produced locally. So we are going to tell the bands.
What was the percentage that was used in this edition?
It wasn't that much but a lot of it was sewn here. It is the fabrics that are an issue, you understand. But with Tinapa you can bring in fabrics to create a garment industry.
Talking about Tinapa, the structure is on ground, what is it that is making it difficult for Tinapa to work?
You are a private sector man. If you want to take a shop in Tinapa, what do you need to make you take a shop? I remember when I asked Coscharis to come and take a shop in Tinapa, he said to me what are the incentives? That is what a private sector man is looking for. What are the incentives? Now in Tinapa, you call it a Free Trade Zone. What is the definition of a Free Trade Zone? It hasn't been defined. That was the issue. What can you bring in free, how are the people to be regulated? You imagine that as a free trade zone it is a Customs Exclusive Zone and then you see customs officers in the shops. Now as an investor, if that is not clear, you will not put your money down. So things that are critical to the success of Tinapa are beyond the control of the Cross River State government. They are all in Abuja.
But what is the situation now?
We now have a rule and regulation for Tinapa operation, but it is not gazzetted, so we cannot show it to the prospective tenants. Once it is gazzetted, then we can now see Tinapa more like a Cotonou. Instead of having to do that wahala in Cotonou, you can come to Tinapa and operate it in the same manner.
What are you doing about the three key roads into Cross River State?
The roads are simply very bad towards the border here.
They are federal roads. That is one. Two, I do not have the resources to do 400 kilometers of roads. Because, you see, this is what I said about the federal government cueing into your vision. If the Federal Government says Cross River is doing tourism, what do we need to support it? All they need to do is put my road on the budget. I do maintenance on the road. I spend a billion naira a year on the maintenance of the three roads, you understand. FERMA are supposed to maintain them, I don't need to talk about that, but I can't go to do the roads. Yes, this year I sat down with my Senators, House Reps members and we managed to get the Ikom-Calabar-Ogoja Road on to the budget. Of course, we can't do this for all. We need about 12 billion to do those roads. Cross River State is at best the third poorest state in Nigeria. But we don't allow that to weigh us down. When you look at our deductions, the deductions from the Cross River State government, what we call direct deductions, after the allocations of revenue sharing, the deductions of the Cross River State government is the highest in the country. We owe more debt than any other state in the country. Cross River State has never seen more than 3.2 billion naira as allocation in a month. That is the total allocation, but when we deduct, if we are lucky we get N2.7 billion as monthly allocation. By the time you look at that, pay your salaries of one-point-something billion, the overheard, et cetera, you are looking at where you will spend this 400 million that will be the balance. You give health and also the others. We keep going. So prioritizing becomes important.
Have you made an appeal to the Federal Government for these roads to be done?
We have made such appeal. I'm fairly well versed in Abuja. So, we do appeal to the Federal Government. I think it is as a result of that that we have sizeable chunk of the budget this year, which is good. We are working with the NDDC and the Akwa Ibom State government on the road that links Tinapa to the Uyo headquarters, because we don't want to do a cargo airport. We think that Akwa Ibom having started that, if they can complete it, it will serve us all. There is a need for much more integration amongst ourselves rather us now building a new airport. It doesn't make any sense.
How is the state faring in the area of generating internal revenue?
Yesd, we are, we were quite low, we were generating about three billion naira internally per annum. In 1999, we were generating 40 million naira. But right now we are in the region of six billion. We've set a target of 12 billion. We need industries. There is only so much that you can generate. We need to make sure that we actually attract those people that can pay tax, because if your taxes are coming from the civil servants, you will not transform the economy. You can't do anything like what Lagos is doing. You can't. Just from factories and industries and commerce in Lagos, easily you can do a lot. Here after going after the banks, we go after UNICEM, Flour mill, then we go to the civil servants. Realistically, we need to make sure that more people come into Cross River State to invest. Right now we have significant interest in oil servicing people and marketers. They are all coming to set up tank farms and so on. That is good for us. Tinapa is a free trade zone, so there are no taxes to anybody. It is the people outside the zone that will pay taxes. It will take us some time to get to a point where we can generate two or three billion naira a month, because even the agricultural companies we are careful with them. We don't want to overtax agriculture. So, there are a number of things that challenges for us. There are also huge revenue points that we have to access to. We have the greatest deposit of limestone in Nigeria. It is under the Federal Ministry of Mines.
How are you handling the prevalent okada economy in the state; there are effort in some states to engage these practitioners in other supportive areas of the economy and then remove them from the road, are you doing anything in this area in the light of the tourism profile of the state?
By May 2010, we will ban Okada as a means of public transportation in Cross River State. Between now and then, we are working on forming small co-operatives. Four okada owners will own a taxi. They will have a sharing arrangement. We've started the taxi scheme. We have already paid 280 million naira of our counterpart fund for the Central Bank of Nigeria programme on microfinance with low interest. When we pay the matching money, they give us another 280 million. We are now using that for these okada riders to now own their own taxis. They've all been notified that by 2010 it would be phased out. There are some states that want to ban immediately, we don't ban it immediately, they have not been engaged either in owning taxis or in other service. We will do that between now and 2010.
What would be your focus for 2009?
For 2009, the challenge for us has always been translating everything we are doing into wealth creation for our people. There is always this thing as regards to doing projects. We are trying to do things that are very sustainable. We are trying to create wealth meaningful. For these key programmes for 2009, implementing them successfully is critical. We have a very challenging social welfare scheme; we are the first to do it in the country. We are embarking on a social welfare scheme. We are trying to create for poorest and most vulnerable in the society a social welfare that allows them to free health care. We are starting with the children under the age of five and the children who are the most vulnerable, who have the highest mortality. So, that is one programme we are monitoring. We have been working on it, but for it to work, we need technology. We want to make sure that every beneficiary has a card and that card entitles them to a health facility and they can get help. Also we are working on roads under the rural development programme. Our focus really is on agriculture.
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