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Peace has opened Plateau to external investors, says commissioner

By Isa Abdulsalami Ahovi, Jos
06 July 2016   |   1:54 am
The Plateau State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Hon. Ezekiel Daju, has linked the moderate achievements in the state to relative peace being enjoyed in the state ...
City of Jos. PHOTO:wikipedia.org

City of Jos. PHOTO:wikipedia.org

The Plateau State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Hon. Ezekiel Daju, has linked the moderate achievements in the state to relative peace being enjoyed in the state as the state has never recorded any outbreak of violent attack since the coming into office of the present administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

According to Daju in a chat with The Guardian, peace is the hallmark of developmental and infrastructure development.

He said, “The cornerstone for positive development in any society is peace. Without peace, no society can make meaningful progress. So, because of the peace we are enjoying in the state, a lot of business activities have increased in the state.”

Daju said, when he came on board, he had to gain the confidence of the people which he said is a necessary administrative procedure, thanking God that he has got the cooperation and support of the staff.

To him, “The first thing we did was to sit down and identify the problems of the ministry and fashion out ways of curtailing them. This ministry is supposed to generate a lot of resources to the state more in this period that the whole country is facing challenges of paucity of funds owing to shortfall in oil revenues. The fortune of oil has nose – dived. So, we definitely have to perfect ways of improving on our internally generated revenue (IGR) especially in the area of business registration and registration of cooperatives.”

He disclosed that last year, only N1 million was realised from registration of business even without the effort of the ministry. “But as of now, our target is N100 million due to the strategies we have put on ground to ensure we achieve our target. Because of shortage of staff, we have contracted the scheme to private organisation.

“We have segmented the state into lots from one to 11 and very soon contractors will swing into action. It will also interest you that we have over 160,000 business premises that have not been captured. So, you can imagine the benefit of capturing this informal sector into the tax net.”

The commissioner thanked God that the tax system is friendly and people can afford it because they are not charging much money for the registration of business premises and cooperatives, adding that it is a surprise that Plateau does not have business directory.

Because of that very important reason, he said the ministry has entered into partnership with an organisation that is currently compiling a business directory for the state so that whenever a business man visits the state, he will be acquainted with business environment.

He added that there is also the sad story of their industries because they are comatose, stressing that they have devised ways of resuscitating them.

“For instance, we have given out BREVIC in Barkin Ladi to Hummer Drinks, a reputable company which had already done the plan audit and is about to go into full production. Some of the products we should expect very soon are Gold Malt and Bottled Water. Also, we have given Jos International Breweries (JIB) to LIMACO to resuscitate.

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