How we’ve fared in two months, by trade fair complex boss

Executive Director (ED)/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Lagos International Trade Fair Complex Management Board (LITFCMB), Charles Onyeka Okoye, at the weekend, said his two months administration has improved the facility for ease of doing business. This, he said, also enhanced revenue generation for the Federal Government and relevant stakeholders.

Okoye, who spoke when the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, paid an inspection visit and held an interaction session with the traders at the complex in Lagos, said: “Within these two months of my official resumption as ED/CEO, we have fully set up and deployed a waste management task force, whose duties are to clear waste and enforce ban on proliferation of refuse dumps on roads all through the complex. Through this task force, we have enforced a phased massive decongestion of access roads.”

“We are currently in talks with private waste management companies with a view to developing a bio-gas power generation infrastructure as an alternative source of power for key projects within the complex, which would be fed by the huge waste deposit generated from the complex, thereby putting a permanent fix to issue of waste management.”

He continued: “We deployed a drainage task force currently embarking on evacuation of all mainstream and feeder channels within the complex to curb the perennial flooding within the complex. We have also raised a road maintenance task force with a mandate to fix and maintain all road networks within the complex, as this will help to improve free flow of traffic in and out of the complex, besides improving the aesthetic value of the facility.

“We are also developing an Internet file-sharing system that would make our operations digitised and seamless for improved correspondence between management members of staff and sister-agencies under supervision of the ministry.

“Besides, we are developing an e-commerce website for wider reach-out and seamless information accessibility geared at better revenue generation by the current board.”

The CEO added: “ We have just commissioned the special compliance and enforcement unit to enforce removal of all illegal structures within and outside the complex in areas not originally designated for such.”

In his remarks after engaging the stakeholders, who craved improved infrastructure, environment for doing business and more access roads, the minister pledged that a better facility after a committee raised to access the complex and collate complaints must has submitted its findings.

Hinting that the facility would be concessioned to a responsible individual or organisation after a proper evaluation, Adebayo assured Nigerians that all encroached lands belonging to the complex would be reclaimed.