Speeches

900 Days In Office

Nov 14, 2009 - Our mandate of 4 (four) years which you gave with effect from 29th May 2007 will take us 1,460 days or 35,040 hours to implement.

Today, we have come back to you to render account on the 900th day which has taken us approximately 21,600 hours.

This is our covenant with you based on the promise made 800 days ago, at the turn of our first 100 days that we will report to you every 100 days thereafter.

It pleases me to no end, to be here today to give a report of another hundred days in which our State and her people have recorded enormous progress as I shall attempt to highlight.

In the eleventh month of the year 2009, I am happy to report that our State has run a fantastic race this year. A year that started with a lot of uncertainty in the global economy about the price of oil and the fate of millions of Nigerians and businesses.

In spite of all these difficulties, Lagos State has held its head and shoulders high, not only among the States of the Federation, but also in the comity of cities on the African continent and beyond.

In the last 100 days, many successes were recorded. We successfully undertook the 3rd Quarter Review of Y2009 Budget which posted a performance of 70% which I believe is the highest in the country and probably on the continent. We have also in that period concluded the plans on the Y2010 Budget which will be presented to the Lagos House of Assembly shortly.

It is important to emphasize that budgets in this State are not about numbers alone, indeed they are about people and the importance of the success of our budget is measured and has been measured by its impact on our people and the opportunities its provides for them.

Y2009 has not been different. The last 100 days have witnessed the completion of life changing, poverty alleviating and job creation projects such as:

a. Extension of BRT from Maryland to Iyana – Ipaja with deployment of 50 (fifty) High Capacity Buses;

b. Provision of 148 vehicles for various cadres of Health Service workers, Teachers and Directors in the State Civil Service;

c. Recruitment of over 1200 categories of personnel into the State Civil Services within the year;

d. Creation of 295 new jobs (consultants, medical doctors, dental officers, house officers, pharmacists, nurses, pharmacy technicians, health record technologist, health record technician, accountant and accounting staff including admin officers) within the last year in the Health Service Sector;

e. On going education of 4,980 students for vocation skills at 14 Vocational & Skill Acquisition Centers across Lagos;

f. Completion of Ikorodu Skill Acquisition Centre with 425 Students

g. Completion of the Igando Transit Camp for displaced women;

h. Completion of the Ikorodu Lagos Drivers’ Institute;

i. Completion of the Oshodi Lagos Drivers’ Institute;

j. Commencement of the Agric Youth Empowerment Scheme for 1,000 youth farmers;

k. Completion of more parks and upgrades of existing ones to honour our heroes such as Sam Okwaraji, Professor Ayodele Awojobi and Justice Muri-Okunola in Surulere, Onike and Victoria Island;

l. Improvement of the security capacity of our policemen through provision of 114 vehicles by the Local Government Chairmen;

m. Presentation of 3rd Annual Report of the Security Trust Fund which showed a crime rate decline of 79.9% for January – September 2009;

n. Launching of the website of the Security Trust Fund and the Citizen’s Contribution Scheme;

o. Commencement of operations at our Joint Venture factory for the production of Transformers in Lagos;

p. Deployment of 17,000 Lagos Waste Disposal Bin project;

q. Payment of N200,000,000.00 outstanding pension to LAWMA Staff;

r. Addition of 44 compactor trucks and female drivers to the growing fleet of LAWMA compactor trucks for refuse management

Apart from this summary of completed projects that took place in the last 100 hundred days, progress is being made on all fronts and with all projects.

Three (3) Maternal and Child Hospitals of 100 beds each have been completed at Ikorodu, Ifako-Ijaiye and Isolo; the Accident and Trauma Centre at the Toll gate, the City Hall renovation, the new Campus Mini Stadium have all been completed and are undergoing post construction clean up before they are handed over to us.

All our market development projects at Kayero in Oshodi, Tejuosho, Oyingbo, Iponri and Oluwole, are making progress as indeed are our road construction and expansion projects, school projects and so much more across the State.

Progress is being made on the Eko Atlantic City Project which received an International Citation in New York recently.

Our water projects are virtually completed and the final stages of the reticulation is what we are expecting conclusion upon in the next few weeks to enable us deliver 15 new water projects that will increase our water supply by 30 million gallons daily.

In all of these sites, enterprise is going on, jobs are created and sustained, people earn a living and take home money to put food on their tables while other economies across the world are laying off people.

This 900th day account of stewardship is dedicated to the drivers of our economy, the most critical sector of the productive force – the small and medium enterprise operators who operate outside of the formal economy.

We have chosen this period because this is the time to engage more closely with you, to share the plans we have made for empowering you in order to prepare you to embrace prosperity.

Very too often people have made the mistake to think that you are poor. I will never fall into that error. I know or at least have a fair sense of your contribution to the State and National economy. I have a fair idea of the quality of the assets that you control which is not in the record of the formal economy.

I know that your savings in banks are a major backbone for providing cash with which various banks satisfy the cash needs of our economy. I know that even though you keep some of your money in banks, when you need money to stock up your goods, or expand your business you may not get the loan because they will say that you have no collateral.

The truth is that you are not poor. The truth is that you have collateral, but it is not kept or presented in the way the credit officer of the bank is trained to look at it.

Your inventories of goods in warehouses are assets that are your collateral. Your shop or business premises, and your flats are collateral but I know that many of you do not have titles to your shops or flats.

This Government had decided to put an end to these problems. Within a short time, all of you who own flats, houses brought from LEDB, LSDPC, LBIC, Ministry of Housing will be issued title documents to your houses.

This will be followed by owners of shops in our new markets who will also get mortgages to pay gradually and be owner-occupiers until they complete paying.

This is the collateral that you need to get credit to do business. This is in addition to accessing our State sponsored Micro-Credit Scheme that is not as rigorous as the banks and has benefitted over 25,000 market men and women and artisans with over N1,400,000,000.00 (One Billion, Four Hundred Million Naira) committed since its commencement.

Apart from transportation and lack of access to credit which we are addressing, we understand that cost of land and electricity are major components of successful commercial activity. We will announce additional measures to facilitate access to land as we are also completing plans to develop industrial clusters with dedicated power supply in places such as Matori, Somolu, Epe to provide sustainable power for artisans such as painters, block makers, welders, vulcanizers, tailors, carpenters, mechanics and so much more.

We are developing business ownership opportunities for Nigerians and Lagosians in many areas such as ferry services, toll road management, bus transit operations, road and public building maintenance as part of a new culture to create new jobs and new opportunities within this economy. Rural dwellers will be encouraged to pursue agriculture as a business and benefit from our micro finance scheme which will support agriculture.

Through the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, we have compiled the Lagos Yellow Pages which is a business directory for small and medium enterprises so that people can know where to locate you and what kind of business you do.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, this is a summary of what we have done in the last 100 days.

We have 560 days more to do a lot of work. That is 13,440 hours that we can deploy to very productive use.

We have overcome a lot of difficulties in the last 900 days and this was possible because of all of you. What lies ahead is not as difficult as what we have left behind. With God on our side and you as our partners, the fullness of our dreams are within touching distance.

I wish you all Eid Mubarak and Merry Christmas in advance.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State