By Ossom Raphael

Ms Yewande Sadiku – Exec. Sec. NIPC

Abuja – Going by the $8.41 billion investment announcement recorded in the first quarter (Q1) of 2021, in various sectors of the economy, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), is hoping that with the commitment by some investors to invest more josbs may be created.

The Executive Secretary of the NIPC, Ms Yewande Sadiku, said the investment announcement aims to follow up on interest indicated by investors to see whether they could translate into actual investments.

Sadikusaid this at the weekend during a chat with journalists on the highlight of the first quarter achievement of the Commission in Abuja.

According to her, “It is a difficult job to get investors to invest in your country. The job of NIPC cannot be done by one Agency.

“We need to come together to make investors come to Nigeria and actually invest in the country, that is one of the ways we can create jobs.

The NIPC boss, noted that a more proactive government approach to investors support across federal government agencies and the state governments is required to translate more announcements into actual investments.

“We’ve been honest that the gap between announcement and actual investment demonstrate potential, we’ve also said that a more proactive all of government approach to investors support across federal and state level is required to convert more announcement to actual investment”.

”If we convert 10% or 20% of investment announcements it will make a material change but you cannot get to the point of conversion if you don’t know what you are looking for”, Yewande noted.

Speaking also, the Director, Department of Strategic Communication of the Commission, Emeka Offor said the investment announcement are categorised by sector, by destination and by source, and added that 15 projects were tracked from 8 states.

According to him, ”In the current Q1 2021 report, we have manufacturing taking the lead followed by construction and electricity, by destination we have Bayelsa State, we have Delta State and Akwa-Ibom and by source Nigerians are showing great resilience by coming out tops and the last quarter, Morocco comes second and UK third.”

On his part, Head of Corporate Services of the NIPC, Sabo Isiaku said that in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, mandatory disclosures, most of which cover January-March 2021, have been placed on the FOI Section of NIPC’s website.

He stated that they include the Pioneer Status Incentive Report, list of companies registered under the NIPC Act, list of court cases that NIPC is involved in, Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and agreements signed by NIPC.

Others are procurements records, nominal roll and nominal roll summaries, appropriation budget performance, report of the One Stop Investment Centre and IGR revenue and expenditure.

He said others include the 2021 Appropriation Budget and 2021 procurement plan of the commission