By Prince Ejeh Josh
The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Enugu State, Dr. Peter Mbah has promised to arrest brain and muscle drains among the youths in the state, attract huge foreign direct and domestic investments and discourage multiple taxation in the state through his sweeping, innovative economic policies if elected in the forthcoming elections.
The governorship frontrunner who gave this assurance, yesterday, at an interactive town hall meeting organised by the Enugu Sports Club, stated that his economic model had been designed to deviate from the established convention, which saw the state’s economy growing incrementally over the past decades, in order to accelerate exponential economic growth that will turn around the economic fortunes of the state.
Dr. Mbah, while reacting to the barrage of questions from members of the sports club who included captains of industry, university professors, international consultants, environmental experts, medical specialists, engineers, among others, held them spellbound when he noted that the state under his leadership would activate new structures that are averse to convention where government will depend less on federal allocations by harnessing the abundant resources and other potentials through public-private-sector partnerships that will move the state away from public sector to private-sector-driven economy.
Pledging that his administration would make the state a destination for investment, progress and development for the youths to realize their potentials through training in skills acquisition, vocational trainings, technology, and further empowering them with one hundred billion naira start-up capital, Dr. Mbah expressed confidence that his planned Tier 4 hyper scale carrier/cloud neutral data center in Enugu will equip youths with the infrastructure to acquire knowledge in ICT, artificial intelligence, robotics, mechatronics that will enable them compete globally.
The oil and gas magnate further said his proposed 30 billion dollars economy within 8 years of his government is achievable with constructive investment through the attraction of a large market enabled by vibrant workforce and massive infrastructure that will make the state an eco-friendly business environment, and heavy concentration on key productivity sectors and other cross-cutting programmes as espoused in his manifesto.
Underscoring the strategic place of agriculture in driving the state’s economy, Dr. Mbah reiterated that the state has sufficient arable land for mechanized agriculture, saying agro-allied processing industries would be established across different communities which will migrate agriculture from subsistence to profitable commercialized business ventures, and displace the existing pipeline mode of farming with a new platform structure.
The PDP gubernatorial flagbearer also re-echoed his plan to create different economic zones in the 3 senatorial zones by deliberate policy of comparative advantage, adding that the energy and mineral sector will be given priority. This, he assured, will enable industries to source their raw materials locally, process them into finished goods for export and generate huge revenue for both investors and workers.
While fielding more questions from investors at the interactive town hall session, Dr. Mbah maintained that part of his plans to encourage more investors to see the state as lucrative is to derisk investment flow by overhauling the land tenure system that will remove unnecessary bureaucracy such that title deeds can be perfected within 7 days, engage civil society organizations in budgetary regime, set up monitoring and evaluation committee through a set of measurable indicators that will allow citizens to assess the extent of the execution of his promises, and consolidate the tax regime that will discourage multiple taxation and extortion.
Dr. Mbah, who described himself as a part of the business community, noted that he understood the pains investors usually go through especially in setting up their businesses, assured that his administration will be the most business friendly to the envy of other states in the country.
On security, he emphasized that the government has the primary responsibility of protecting the lives and properties of the citizens which would be one of his cardinal pillars.
According to him, his government will invest heavily on intelligence gatherings, community policing, training and retraining of security personnel and provisions of hardware security gadgets. He further stressed that hideouts for kidnappers, unknown gunmen and other criminal groups will be converted into agricultural hubs for wealth-creation.
Dr. Mbah reiterated his resolve to make the state a hub of medical tourism by strengthening healthcare facilities, providing incentives to workers, in addition to making available other social services such as pipe-borne water supply, rural infrastructure, robust education programme among others.
