Lagos State government has restated her commitment to development partnerships for sustainable financing to tackle infrastructural deficit in the state.
Mr. Ope George, the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget spoke at a Panel session during the third biennial West Africa Capital Market Conference (WACMaC) 2023 with the theme “Infrastructural Deficit and Sustainable Financing in an Integrated West Africa Capital Market”, at the Eko Hotels and Suites, said the State has always been collaborating with multinationals and States to upscale infrastructure development.
The West Africa Capital Market Conference (WACMaC) is a flagship program of the West Africa Securities Regulators Association (WASRA), which seeks to present the West African region and indeed Africa with the opportunity to address important issues relating to growth and development of the regional and continental capital markets and as well attract investment into the sub-region.
The Commissioner said the state government through its agencies drives partnerships for its infrastructure development like the Lagos State Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, LAMATA to build the Lagos Rail Mass Transit project; the Waterways Authority to improve on water transportation and not leaving out other such agencies in transforming the State’s development.
“We take on projects that may be not many Nationals will take for example; the Rail. The rail lines we have done, we are taking up two rail lines that are going on now, some Nationals doing it too. We are also conscious of the fact that we need to do a lot more, we need to do a lot more with multinational agencies. With LAMATA, with our Waterways, quite a few of them; we are constantly working with them in making sure that we can give our people the infrastructure that is required.
He noted that the State government is not just investing in road and rail infrastructure but also keying into Food Security which has seen the building of the Food Security System and Logistics Hub reach an 80 percent completion stage at Ketu-Ereyun in Epe Area of the state.
“One of the things we are also looking at is Food Security. We know that Food Security is key, so we are currently building a Food and logistics hub in Ketu about 80 percent complete. We have had a lot of interest from multinational agencies that want to take part in that and look for how we can transform the food that is generated along the coast. So it is not just infrastructure projects, there are other projects we are looking at to ensure that we can sort of tie with our neighbours and other states on the coast of West Africa,” he said.
