No Open-ended MoU at Nasarawa Investment Summit, Gov Sule Cautions Investors
Igbawase Ukumba in Lafia
The Nasarawa State Governor, Mr. Abdulallahi Sule, yesterday cautioned investors hoping to attend the Nasarawa State maiden investment summit that the state was not going to sign an open-ended Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with any investor.
Governor Sule gave the caution when featuring live on TVC’s ‘Business Nigeria’ programme ahead of the Nasarawa State Investment Summit scheduled for May 11 and 12, 2022, as part of build up to the event.
Sule said: “We are not going to sign an open-ended MoU. We are signing MoU for a specific time that if you come in and go into this MoU and you are not able to perform within this period of time, therefore you become null and void.
“So this is why this particular Summit is different from the other ones I have attended. We sign the MoU, we take them to the location. We assign somebody who follows us up.
“And then, if we assign a particular area to any investor and we don’t see any seriousness after a while, we bring somebody else.”
He explained that MoU were being signed during such investment summits without any follow up to actualise the ideas, a situation he said: “We don’t need that kind of MoU in Nasarawa State. So we are very careful about where we are going to spend our
money.
“We are selecting two key areas that we have strong comparative advantages; agriculture and mining. We are selecting those who will participate in those areas. These are people that we strongly believe have the interest in those kinds of areas.”
The governor, however, disclosed that people who had the interest have started contacting organisers of the Nasarawa Investment Summit in those areas.
He continued that the state’s expectation from the summit was to actually explore the great potentials in mining and its proximity to the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja).
“We have already selected about 13,000 hectres of land; about 5km away from Maitama-Abuja. Once explored will create a new frontier for housing, factories and all kinds of industrialisation for Abuja.
“What that means is investment because Nasarawa State is relatively peaceful in the northern part of the country. As a result of that, I know that is exactly what investors’ need,” he said.
Sule continued that Nasarawa was very peaceful, and it has potentials for employment opportunities.
On the recent improvement in the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), the governor said that it was achieved due to the state’s consolidation on its revenues and blockages of all the leakages that were in the system.
He said: “By the time we adopted the TSA, we were able to produce multiple taxations by coming out with the legal framework to ensure that companies are properly taxed.
“We were able to move from the N7.9 billion to over N11 billion by 2021. With other revenues coming in, we are able to move to N16.8 billion.
“With the Nasarawa Economic Development Strategy (NEDS) coming up with the legal framework, we are able to see over $500 million in policies as well as in pure investment through the Dangote Group, the Azman and the Flour Mills Group,” Sule maintained.
