Our radical economic policy’ll stop brain drain — Mbah
The governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Enugu State, Dr. Peter Mbah, has promised to arrest brain drain among the youths in the state, attract huge foreign direct and domestic investments and discourage multiple taxation through his sweeping, innovative economic policies, if elected in the forthcoming elections.
Mbah, who gave this assurance at an interactive town hall meeting organised by Enugu Sports Club yesterday, stated that his economic model had been designed to deviate from the established convention, which saw the state’s economy growing incrementally over the past decades, in order to accelerate exponential economic growth that would turn around the economic fortunes of the state.
While reacting to the barrage of questions from members of the sports club who included captains of industry, university professors, international consultants, environmental experts, medical specialists, engineers, among others, Mbah noted that the state, under his leadership, would activate new structures that were averse to convention where government would depend less on federal allocations by harnessing the abundant resources and other potentials through public-private-sector partnerships that will move the state away from public sector to private-sector-driven economy.
Pledging that his administration would make the state a destination for investment, progress and development for the youths to realize their potentials through training in skills acquisition, vocational trainings, technology, and further empowering them with one hundred billion naira start-up capital, the PDP governorship hopeful expressed confidence that his planned Tier 4 hyper scale carrier/cloud neutral data center in Enugu would equip youths with the infrastructure to acquire knowledge in ICT, artificial intelligence, robotics, mechatronics that will enable them compete globally.
The oil and gas magnate further said his proposed $30 billion economy within eight years of his government was achievable with constructive investment through the attraction of a large market enabled by vibrant workforce and massive infrastructure that will make the state an eco-friendly business environment, and heavy concentration on key productivity sectors and other cross-cutting programmes as espoused in his manifesto.
Underscoring the strategic place of agriculture in driving the state’s economy, Dr. Mbah reiterated that the state had sufficient arable land for mechanized agriculture, saying agro-allied processing industries would be established across different communities to migrate agriculture from subsistence to profitable commercialized business ventures, and displace the existing pipeline mode of farming with a new platform structure.
The PDP gubernatorial flagbearer also re-echoed his plan to create different economic zones in the 3 senatorial zones by deliberate policy of comparative advantage, adding that the energy and mineral sector will be given priority. This, he assured, will enable industries to source their raw materials locally, process them into finished goods for export and generate huge revenue for both investors and workers.
While fielding more questions from investors at the interactive town hall, Mbah maintained that part of his plans to encourage more investors to see the state as lucrative was to derisk investment flow by overhauling the land tenure system that will remove unnecessary bureaucracy, such that title deeds could be perfected within seven days, engage civil society organizations in budgetary regime, set up monitoring and evaluation committee through a set of measurable indicators that will allow citizens to assess the extent of the execution of his promises, and consolidate the tax regime that will discourage multiple taxation and extortion.
