The Managing Director of NEPZA, Dr. Olufemi Ogunyemi, has urged state governors to adopt the Free Trade Zones (FTZs) concept, following Lagos State’s successful model. He emphasized the importance of attracting local and foreign investments by establishing Special Economic Zones or FTZs.
According to Dr. Ogunyemi, Nigeria has about 60 free zones, with the most successful ones located in Lagos State.
The NEPZA boss made this assertion while speaking with journalists when he took members of the Senate Committee on Trades and Investment on a tour of the Lagos Free Trade Zones. He noted that it is expedient for the Senators to have a first hand knowledge of the success story of the Free Trade Zones in Lagos state which was initiated by the current Nigeria President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he was the governor of the state.
Dr Ogunyemi argued that the easiest way for any state to industrialize their states is to attract whether its local direct investment or foreign direct investment by bringing people into the Free Trade Zones or Special Economic Zones as he prefers to call it.
“We have about sixty free zones in Nigeria, though some of them are not operational, but the most successful ones of them are located in the Lagos axis. And they are successful for a reason.
“The foresight, the planning and the vision of our current president, His Excellency, Ahmed Bola Tinubu when he was the governor of Lagos state was what gave birth to the success story of the Lagos Free Trade Zones. He was the one that had the vision to assign a lot of these lands in the axis and designate them as a Free Trade Zone. We’v got Dangote refinery, and fertilizer here, we have the Lekki Free Zone jointly owned by the Lagos state government and the Chinese Government. We have the Lagos Free Zone which is owned by the Tolaram group, a family that has been in Nigeria for decades. The group that just exported the very first export of the Africa Free Trade Agreement. One of the companies just exported out of Nigeria.
“It is the same Tolaram Group that has given birth to the Lekki Port, the first Deap Sea Port in Nigeria. So, the Zone is very busy, and very important to the Nigeria economy. This is why I chose to come with the Senate Committee on Trades and Investment and show them what is going on here, because the investors have contributed a big chunk to the Nigeria economy.
Meanwhile, Dr Olufemi however laments that some of the states which had taken the initial steps to establish the Free Trade Zones in their states could not continue because of subsequent government failure to continue thereby plunging the state into huge debt
“Already, some of these states have zones and they have entered into partnership with some other people, but when governance changes and maybe another party takes over, the next governor may not have the same interest and dedication to what the previous governor had started, and there is this initial lack of interest.
“What happened then? They started to accumulate debts, because there are agreements to pay the renewal licence fees every year. These are zones that we have already given licenses. So, they have to renew the license every year but this is often neglected, and a lot of them have run into huge debts with the Federal Government. These debts are quite enormous, but I am looking for ways now to help them with these debts so that we can get the zones up and running again. This is why it looks as if the state’s governments are not interested. They are actually very interested because they want to industrialize their state, they want to create employment for their people in their states,” he concluded.
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