Niger State Government has concluded an arrangement to partner the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to attract private capital investments to the state.
This was the outcome of the visit of Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago, to the Director-General of the BPE, Alex Oko recently at his office in Abuja.
The governor observed that the BPE has the ability and capacity to guide the state in attracting meaningful investment that would engender socio-economic development and bring prosperity to the state.
Governor Umaru Bago who was in the company of some commissioners and heads of relevant agencies on investment and economy, explained that his visit was to learn and seek the assistance of BPE on how best to benefit from the numerous potentials the BPE can offer the state.
"We understand the ability of BPE to deliver and we have come for tutelage, to develop proposals that are bankable and a model to prosperity. We need to attract investments to Niger State", he said.
In a statement made available to Newsline by his Chief Press Secretary, Mal. Bologi Ibrahim, the governor was said to have enumerated some comparative advantages of the state, especially on power and arable land for agriculture. The statement also disclosed that the state has indicated interest to do a nursery for 1 billion trees that would be cultivated.
To further actualise its Green Economy initiative, the governor announced that the state government has written to the federal government, to allow it to take ownership of the Kainji Lake National Park even on a lease, with the view to aggregating the trees, replanting cash crops and economic trees as well as create effective ways of monitoring the Park for the economic benefit of the state.
The Director-General, BPE, Alex Okoh, pledged to support the Niger state government in optimizing its assets and reforming the power, agricultural and tourism sectors.
He acknowledged that the federal allocation alone cannot drive development at the sub-national territories hence the need for states to begin to translate their potentials to actual benefits.
While describing Niger state as an energy hub as it hosts four hydro dams and generates the cheapest energy consumed in the country, Okoh said the BPE will assist to structure the power and agricultural potentials of the state to attract valuable private capital investments, build its capacity to articulate and structure transactions that would attract development partners.
He said the bureau will also help the state to develop a comprehensive assets register for effective PPP engagements, adding that he will work with the relevant stakeholders in investments to see how capital investments would be attracted to the state by the first quarter of next year.
On the Kainji National Park, Okoh said the bureau will ensure its resuscitation as it will benefit the state..