SIR: Recently, the Director General, Delta Investment Development Agency (DIDA), Anthony Elekeokwuri, called on serious minded local and foreign investors to take advantage of the state government’s ease of doing business package.

While noting that the creation of DIDA was instructive of the seriousness attached to fully explore the investment potentials of the state as MORE agenda of the Oborevwori administration had lots of investment opportunities to explore, Elekeokwuri, who made the call in Asaba, the state capital, reportedly assured of a conducive environment to do business in the state, adding that government would assist in land acquisition, provision of safety, ensuring cordial relationship with host communities, as well as grant tax waiver to prospective investors.

Without labour, the most telling evidence that renders the present call by Elekeokwuri as understandable and validly important is critically signposted in the fact that it is within the preview of DIDA to use every creative means to revive the moribund industries in the state, and if achieved, will definitely create massive employment opportunities in ways that will end the protracted youth unemployment which seems to have visibly defiled every solution in the past.

This is closely followed by the new awareness that the role of private sector in driving investment and the economy can no longer be substituted as the crushing weight of infrastructural provision and economic diversification has become too heavy for the government alone to carry.

In fact, this second point becomes more appreciated when one commits to mind that the call to development minded agencies for productive collaboration between private and public sectors at the global stage has become a lingua franca of the sort. A typical example to this fact is the 2030 Sustainable Agenda, which loudly encourages private sectors to partner with public sector in areas such as; agriculture, oil and gas, power generation, environmental remediation among others.

However, beyond these peripheral advantages coupled with accompanying promise by DIDA boss that government would assist in land acquisition, provision of safety, ensuring cordial relationship with host communities, as well as grant tax waiver to prospective investors, there are in the opinion of this piece, other critical steps that must first be taken by DIDA and state government for critical minds to take the state government seriously in its present bid.

To attract investors, the state government must do more in the area of security provision as it has the capacity to promote atmosphere of peace, enhance profitability in business, assist investment to thrive while attracting new ones.  For the purpose of clarity, it is not as if the state has not done anything in the past to secure the state. But looking at commentaries, it is obvious that the state government needs to do more in the interest of Deltans and prospective investors.  

As we know, youths challenge cuts across, regions, religion, and tribe, and has in the past led to the proliferation of ethnic militia as well as youth restiveness across the country. And it is only by engaging these teeming youths through employment creation that the incessant youth restiveness can be abated.
Jerome-Mario Utomi, a journalist, wrote in from Lagos.