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400 Days of Public and Private Collaboration in Lagos State

Written by Opeyemi Bamidele

Wednesday, 02 July 2008

On the very day that he resumed for duties as Lagos State Governor at Alausa on May 30th, 2007, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola left no one in doubt that he is not only a respected Senior Advocate of Nigeria but a veritable Senior Arithmetician of Nigeria in his own right. Addressing civil servants who had trooped out to give him a rousing welcome to the seat of government, the Governor reckoned that time was the essence for his Administration as the first time of his four years amounted approximately to 1,440 days and 34,560 hours in office.

The decision of the Governor to give an account of his Administration every hundred days is partly informed by this consciousness of time and the need to make maximum use of every minute of the precious resource. Today marks exactly 400 days since His Excellency was sworn in as Chief Executive of Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, Africa’s model Mega City, the current sixth largest urban agglomeration in the world and projected to be the third largest global megalopolis by Y2015. As has become characteristic of his style, the governor will seize the occasion to give an account of his stewardship to a critical segment of the public, this time the Organized Private Sector.

In consonance with the theme of continuity that characterized his electoral campaign for the last governorship election, Governor Fashola has continued to strengthen the partnership between the public and private sectors as a necessary condition for attaining the socio-economic goals of Lagos State as a global Mega City. Such productive partnerships have become the prevalent trend across the globe as governments have become increasingly incapable of solely funding the massive infrastructural needs particularly of sprawling Mega Cities.

In his inaugural address to the state at his swearing in on May 29th, 2007, the Governor strongly pledged his commitment to working closely with the private sector to actualize the administration’s central policy thrust of poverty alleviation and sustainable economic growth. In his words: “During my term in office, Lagos will remain a pro-business city state. We already have a tradition of developing systems which serve the need of the public and at the same time offer enormous potentials for the unemployed…In the coming years we shall continue to partner with the private sector, the new Federal Government and the local government councils to create even more of these structures”.

To underscore the seriousness of the Fashola Administration in forging a closer working relationship with the private sector, the government organized the first ever International Workshop on Public-Private Partnership to be hosted here in Lagos when it was barely six months in office. Reputable local and international organizations that participated actively in the workshop included Skye Bank Plc, First Bank Plc, Oceanic Bank Plc, Intercontinental Bank Plc, Diamond Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc, Price Waterhouse Cooper, Standard Bank of South Africa, Rand Merchant Bank, New Era Capital Corporation of New York, J.P. Morgan of South Africa and Denton Wilde Sapte of United Kingdom to name a few.. The immense success of the workshop demonstrated clearly that the private sector, local and foreign, is eager to tap into the tremendous business opportunities that exist in Lagos.

In his very well received speech on the occasion, the governor urged private sector investors to see and seize the enormous business opportunities that exist in the challenges confronting Lagos in diverse sectors including power and water supply, waste disposal, compaction and management, public transportation, roads construction, housing development, agriculture and fishery, slum upgrading and tourism among others. Painting a graphic picture of the challenges facing Lagos and why public private partnership has become imperative the Governor declared “Over the next two decades, it is projected that the state must expend at least US$ 2 billion on the expansion and modernization of its water supply network.

In the same vein, the state must expend no less than US$ 715 million over a five year period to provide a qualitative and efficient road network. The upgrading of existing slums to uplift the quality of life of millions of men, women and children will gulp no less than US$ 185 million in the next 15 years. And to achieve the objective of an efficient and effective waste management system will require the expenditure of about US$ 100 million every year for the next few years…It is obvious that only through creative Public-Private Partnerships can these targets be met.”

In the aftermath of this land mark work shop, a Public-Private-Partnership Office has been established under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance to serve as a one-stop investment shop and a business centre for PPP’s in Lagos State. The office has the responsibility of coordinating public-private-partnership initiatives between affected Ministries, agencies and private investors. Furthermore, judicial reforms continue to be deepened at all levels of justice delivery to consolidate the position of the Lagos judiciary as one of the best equipped, professionalized and motivated in Africa to ensure efficient and credible delivery of justice as well as protect the sanctity of investments.

The issue of taxation is another area that has attracted the attention of the Administration over the last 400 days to ensure smooth public-private sector relationship towards the attainment of our Mega City goals. Again, the governor had, in his inaugural address, taken note of the acrimony that had hitherto existed between both sectors on this contentious issue. In his words on that occasion, “All over the world it is taxes that empower governments to cater for the people restore social equilibrium and achieve other objectives for the improvement of society. We will therefore consult with the organized private sector as we take steps to remove all bottlenecks that exist in the tax assessment and collection process so as to ensure that private businesses and individuals discharge their social responsibilities with minimum effort.”

A major step towards fulfilling this promise was taken on 3rd December, 2007, when the Fashola Administration hosted the first ever stakeholders conference on taxation in the history of Lagos State. It presented a viable platform for all affected stakeholders to vigorously debate and reach consensus on diverse issues including problems with taxation in the informal sector, tax evasion in the formal sector, multiplicity of taxes and levies, the vexatious issue of sales tax. The Governor sternly warned on that occasion that “cases of illegal taxes and levies will be taken very seriously and officers responsible brought to book.”

At the same time, however, he vigorously canvassed support for the Lagos State Sales Tax Law pointing out that “As we all know, sales tax is not on the Exclusive Legislative list of the 1999 constitution. Neither is it on the concurrent list. The Supreme Court has had occasion to confirm its status as a residual matter for the state legislatures to deal with.. I cannot therefore agree with the contention that the existence of Value Added Tax offers a good excuse for non-compliance with the State Sales Tax.”

Apart from enabling stakeholders to iron out areas of differences, the forum was an opportunity for the Governor to unveil the new, re-organized, re-equipped and re-motivated Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) into which the former Board of Internal Revenue had been transformed over the last 400 days. A now thoroughly professionalized outfit, the LIRS is better placed to continuously boost the internally generated revenue profile of the state through efficient, effective and transparent tax collection. An indication of the new philosophy and orientation of the LIRS was its decision to publicly recognize and offer plaques of honor to the most tax compliant individuals and organizations in the state namely Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Alhaji Razaq Akanni Okoya, Coca Cola Nigeria Ltd Bottling company and IBTC Chartered Bank.

The outstanding success of the Y2008 Ehinbgbeti summit with the theme “Transforming Lagos into Africa’s Model Mega City” is another indication of the healthy partnership that exists between the Lagos State Government and the private sector. Once again, reputable local and international development experts as well as local and foreign private sector organizations participated actively at the summit. Since the 44 resolutions passed at the earlier summits in 2001, 2002 and 2004 were all fully implemented; participants had every reason to be confident that the 25 resolutions passed at this year’s event would be actualized as they are indeed already being implemented.

At the level of concrete policy, there are so many examples of positive public private collaboration for economic growth and prosperity in Lagos state over the last 400 days. These include the massive greening of open spaces across Lagos being undertaken in partnership with private landscaping and beautification firms, the Lagos State Security Trust Fund through which government and the private sector have pooled over N1 billion in cash and kind to strengthen the police for more effective performance; the Lagos Mortgage Scheme through which four banks have pooled over N40 billion to empower low and medium income earners own their homes through long term loans to be repaid at affordable interest, the Eko Meat Vans through which private operators are facilitating the hygienic transportation of meat to enhance public health and even the Bus Rapid Transit system with 100 of the 126 high capacity buses currently running the Mile 12 to CMS route being managed by private operators.

The forthcoming Eko Atlantic City project is a private- public- partnership residential and commercial hub that will literarily spring out of the Atlantic Ocean and transform the landscape of Lagos. Similarly, the Lagos Energy City Project is another public-private partnership integrated energy, convention and tourism complex to be located in Badagry. Only recently the Governor took delivery of the completed first two kilometers of the ongoing expansion and modernization of the Lagos-Epe Expressway, the first public-private partnership road construction effort of its size and complexity in sub-Saharan Africa. As Governor Fashola confers with the private sector to commemorate his 400 days in office today, we can confidently say that public-private partnership for Mega City growth is alive and well in Lagos, the Centre of Excellence.

Opeyemi Bamidele is the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy

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Comments (1)

1. 23-07-2008 13:58

welldon

you are doing a wonderful job keep it up

Written by abbey (Guest)

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