From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu

Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu state, Chief Uchenna Nnaji, yesterday said that his administration would establish Enugu State Development Bank with a capital base of N250 billion if elected in March next year.

Nnaji, who spoke at the Enugu Chamber of Commerce Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA) House, while presenting his programme to Enugu Business Community under the aegis of (ECCIMA) and the Enugu Coalition for Business and Professional Association (ECOBA), promised that the
administration he would lead would revitalize abandoned industries in the state.

He also said that he would build new industries in partnership with the private sector and reduce unemployment to minimal level in four years.

Nnaji said, “I know that funding is a big programme, government will be a catalyst in industrial development, we will support small, medium and micro enterprises to grow.

“To this end, we will set up Enugu State Development Bank which will be registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, Security and Exchange Commission and other relevant bodies.

“Government will own 10 per cent equity in the Development bank while the people of Enugu state and other private investors will own 90 per cent of equity. So I don’t have problem with funding of our projects, we will use the development bank to catalyse industrial development.

“Any business we invest on, we do so with the private sector by investing 10% but when the business begins to do well, we will divest and move into another business.”

Related News

Cataloguing problems of Enugu state to include mismanagement of resources, multiple taxation and lack of capacity by government officials to deliver on their mandate, Nnaji promised to fix the perennial water problem in the state by revitalizing the the seven water projects.

He promised to create 10 hectares of land in each senatorial districts of the state and use government resources to prepare the land and allocate same to young people and other farmers to cultivate with provision of financial support and improved seedlings and machineries, in order to produce for local and export.

Furthermore, he said he would build power generating plants to generate 50 megawatts of electricity combination of sources including solar and wind energy.

Nnaji said that he was the candidate that was into real oil and gas business as he owns substantial equities in oil wells in Nigeria and also equity in refineries outside Nigeria.

He said, “I’m the only business man running for governorship; PDP candidate is not a business man, he did not grow in business he only jammed money and started oil marketing.

“Those of us in oil and gas business know what it means, building oil tank farm is only an arm of oil and gas marketing… We are in oil and gas business including owning equities in oil blocs and refineries outside Nigeria.”