By Bimbola Oyesola
The Lagos State Government has said that organised private sector (OPS) will play a vital role in its new 30-year developmental plan.
At the public-private partnership pre-summit (Ehingbeti) stakeholders engagement in Lagos, with the theme “Lagos State 2022- 2052: Charting the paths to sustainable socio-economic growth” , the governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said the state was ready to unveil its 30-year development plan and the support over the last 20 years and recommendations from the summit have helped the state to focus on areas that concern the citizens, investors and businesses with positive results achieved.
“We are using the forth coming Eyingbeti summit as a medium to unveil our 30 years development plan and as a government that is people driven, we carry the citizens along in order for them to know what we are doing so that they can contribute their quota to it. That’s how nations are built and ours can’t be different,” he stated.
The government revealed that the size of the state is 0.4% of the land mass of Nigeria and one third of it is covered by water.
He added that Lagos would continue to be home to businesses and the economic hub center of the country.
The governor said the state has it own challenges, ranging from metric tones of waste produce everyday, the concern of the state being below the sea level, couple with climate change and sea arising.
He noted that it was the reason the state was initiating a robust plan to see an economy that would be driven by technology and also have the capacity of a human-centric hub.
“We must have an infrastructure that can be compared to the best in the world and also serve the generation coming behind. And for us to do all these, there is need to engage stakeholders to achieve this goals and dreams,” he added.
The Chairman, Lagos Economic Summit Group and Commissioner of Economic Planning and Budget, Lagos State, Mr. Sam Egube, averred that the Ehingbeti Lagos Economic Summit scheduled to hold on October 11th and 12th would unveil a new Lagos State Development Plan (LSDP) 2022 to 2052 economic plan for Lagos State.
Egube said Lagos is a city of plans, stressing that 2022 to 2052 plan is a rollover from a 15-year plan that is expected to phase out in 2025.
He added that, out of about 222 resolutions reached at the previous summit, 210 of them have been implemented, thereby indicating a 95 percent achievement.
He advised the private sector to participate fully in the summit, as the state must continue to thrive in order for Africa to grow..
The President, Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), Mr. Taiwo Adeniyi noted that Lagos unlike any other city in the world has its diverse and multi-cultural complexities and probably the only of its kind.
Adeniyi said the task of building the state and making it achieve its full potential is not one to be done by government alone.
While appreciating the government for opening up the Lagos Mega-City Project to the Organized Private Sector, he emphasised that the Association has over 4,000 strong direct and indirect member-companies with about 90% in Lagos State and over 23 Sectoral employers’ Association, this according to him pointed out to the fact that the Association is the most dependable partner in the project.
“We wish to further deepen this engagement with the government of Lagos State by requesting the formalization of a Bi-annual or quarterly High-Level Breakfast meeting between the State and Organized Businesses in Lagos under the auspices of NECA, as this will help to deepen our collaboration and ensure continuous partnership” he said.