Faced with criticism on its decision to out rightly sell off some legacy projects to finance the 2018 budget, the Kogi State Government has proposed back tracked on the controversial policy.
The controversy was stoked by the State’s Commissioner of Finance, Asiwaju Idris, during his budget defense for the ministry, where he revealed government’s plan to sell off some of the State property.
Many stakeholders in the state had condemned the decision as some even threatened to sue the Government if it goes ahead with the plan.
Director-General, Kogi Bureau of Public Private Partnership (BPPP), Mr. Bob Achanya, stressed that contrary to speculations that government planned to sell-off landed property and projects of previous administrations, it was out to resuscitate moribund ventures through concession agreements.
Achanya disclosed this at the weekly Inter-Ministerial Press briefing organised by Kogi Bureau of Information Services and Grassroots Sensitisation in collaboration with the state Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Lokoja.
Achanya said that government was not talking about the sale of viable property but concession of projects to investors.
“What I see here is a tactical refusal of the people to accept the concept of concession of projects. I have not seen any sale; we don’t even have a lease. All the talks are political semantics to disparage government policies.
The director general disclosed that the bureau received over 600 business proposals from investors interested in various sectors of the state economy in last two years.
He indicated that 42 of the concession projects were on-going on six-month probation at the expiration of which the quality and speed of work would determine their continuity or otherwise.
According to him the bureau had developed an integrated Infrastructure Masterplan for infrastructural development of the state.
Achanya described the masterplan which had been approved by the State Government as “Syllabus and Textbook” of business in the state.
Source: today.ng
