As the Alaghodaro Investment Summit got underway on Friday in Benin City, the Edo State capital, investment experts and heads of federal government regulatory agencies proffered solutions to the bureaucratic bottlenecks in government that are hindering the growth of businesses in Nigeria.
At a plenary session on Institutional Reforms tilted Doing Things Differently, Professor Oladapo Afolabi, former Head of Service of the Federation, stressed that for any reform to yield the desired result, the buy-in of the political class and the common people must be secured and sustained over time.
“To sustain this reform, there must be the buy-in of the political class and members of the public. This will ensure that the reform is placed in the heart of the people,” Prof Afolabi said.
He urged the state government to be responsive to new demands and be ready to carry the civil service along in its reform programmes to ensure their success.
According to Prof Afolabi, “The state government must continuously adapt to the forces of change in ensuring institutional reforms to drive its vision of achieving economic growth.
“The reforms should focus on areas that will mostly impact on the wellbeing of the people, as sustainable institutional reform is people-driven. The state government must have an implementation plan as previous reforms embarked by governments in Nigeria failed because they were not structured, and had no implementation plan.”
In her remark, former Executive Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Partner, Compliance Professionals Limited, Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru, who moderated the session, declared that with the investment summit, Edo State is ready for business and called for a synergy among stakeholders to achieve the desired goal.
In her submission, the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), Yewande Sadiku, said that the inclusion of investment promotion in the reform programme will help the state in her investment drive.
“Investment promotion should be proactive and focus on telling the investors how conducive the environment is and how attractive the returns are, amongst other incentives.
She advised that a state investment promotion agency should be created to drive the promotion of investments, adding, “The agency should be the eye of investors inside government because they understand the needs of investors. The agency must also buy-in into the need to drive investment and be given full access to govt information.”