Government to reposition One-Stop Investment Centre

Government to reposition One-Stop Investment Centre

Nigerian government said it is set to reposition the One-Stop Investment Centre (OSIC) so that it could cope with the upsurge in the number of investors coming into the country.

The Director of the organisation, Mr Bala Bello said this while speaking with reporters in Abuja on Tuesday.

“There is an upsurge of investors coming in now, taking interest in Nigeria. We have a lot of trade delegations coming in; we have a lot of inquiries coming in and so from now till the end of the year, you will see lots of investors coming in. In fact, we are repositioning ourselves to be able to cope with this upsurge of investors,” he said.

Political project

Bello said that the volume of investment coming into Nigeria during the period preceding the April general elections and the first half of 2011 had slowed down.

He particularly referred to area of infrastructure and pointed out that there was a little slowdown because of the organisations engagement in political project.

Government’s reform

The director said that inadequate foreign investment in the country was due to the absence of the right type of policy and reform in place.

According to him, “the government is working on the reform and once it is done, a lot of investors will come in and invest in power and roads.”

“Government is already pumping a lot of money into the power sector; we have to get the reform right, the monopoly of PHCN is now being unbundled to allow people to invest. Government is looking at electricity supply/purchase agreement in such a way that investors will find it attractive for them to come and invest in the power sector,” he explained.

He noted that the government is working on Nigeria’s transportation system to provide alternative mass transportation system.

“The government is pumping a lot of money into infrastructure. From now to the next three/four years, you will see a lot of resources being pumped into these areas and I know that very soon it will be an issue that we have to overcome as a nation,'' he explained

Bello said the government was taking adequate steps to tackle the issue of security by creating jobs for the people through its transformation agenda.

NAN/Shakira/Williams