8th April, 2014
Kazeem Ugbodaga
Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola today declared open the 7th Lagos Economic Summit, tagged Ehingbetti 2014, with the theme ‘Powering the Lagos Economy: Real Opportuinities, Endless Possibilities’.
At the event held at the Eko Hotels and Towers, Victoria Island, Lagos, southwest Nigeria on Tuesday, Fashola said the state government had achieved a lot from the past summits, especially the last one which focused on Power, Agriculture, Transportation and Housing, PATH, as two Independent Power Projects, IPP, have since been commissioned.
He disclosed that the IPP on Lagos Island had led to the decommissioning of 198 generators as major areas on the Island were now powered by IPP, as the cost of electricity generation went down when they depended on the national grid for power generation.
Fashola said during the construction of the two IPPs, 259 people were employed, adding that 242 streets had been lit up across the state, which is helping in the development of micro economy in the state.
According to him, a study carried out among traders in Iyana Ipaja recently showed that the profits being made by traders had gone up astronomically as they now had electricity supply through the street light to enable them trade for longer period.
The governor added that the state had done much in the area of agriculture as 400 new farmers had been made, while the egg production had gone up from 18,660 eggs per day in 2012 to 82,000 eggs currently.
Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Ben Akabueze said several of the resolutions arrived at in previous summits from 2000 to 2012 had been implemented and that the summits had formed the blueprint for which the government’s economic agenda was being piloted.
He stated that government was moving towards food sufficiency as most of the resolutions reached at the last summit in the area of agriculture had been implemented which had helped in boosting food production.
According to Akabueze, about 10 percent of consumables were now being produced in Lagos locally as agriculture was being aggressively pursued, with Lagos State purchasing land in other states to grow crops.
General Manager, Lagos Electricity Board, Mrs Damilola Ogunbiyi, lamented that residents of the state were paying through their nose to get power as they spend so much to fuel their generators.
She disclosed that the government would soon set up the Lagos State Energy Academy to train up technicians to handle the various IPPs government intended to set up.
Ogunbiyi noted that what government had discovered was that there is a huge gap in trained artisans and that the academy would help to train artisans to fill the gap.
The summit attracted economic experts from across the world, such as the former President of Georgia, Mr. Mikheil Saakashvili, Prof. Barth Nnaji, former Minister of Petroleum; Deputy Governor, Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire; Managing Director, Standard Chartered Bank, Mrs. Bola Adesola; Mr. Tokunbo Abiru, Executive Director, First Bank, among others.