The Plateau State Commissioner of Commerce and Industries, Hon. Ezekiel Daju, has attributed the key achievements of their one year in office, to the state government’s pro-activity maintaining peace in the state.

Daju in a chat with newsmen said, peace is the hallmark of societal and infrastructural development. Saying any society that does not invest in peaceful measures, will pay dearly for such carelessness.
Daju said, when he came on board as commissioner, he had to gain the confidence of his staff by interacting with them on personal levels to understand their modus operandi etc. “The first thing we did with my staff, was to sit down and identify the problems of the ministry and fashion out ways of curtailing them. This ministry is supposed to generate a lot of resources to the state, particularly in this period that the whole country is facing challenges of paucity of funds. The fortune of oil has nose – dived. So, we definitely have to perfect ways of improving on our internally generated revenue (IGR) especially in the area of business registration and registration of cooperatives.”

He disclosed that last year, only N1 million was realized from registration of businesses. “But for now, our target is N100 million due to the strategies we have put on ground to ensure we achieve our target. And because of the shortage of staff, we have contracted the scheme to a private organisation.

“We have segmented the state into small matrices, ranging from one to eleven and very soon contractors will swing into action.

It will also interest you that we have over 160,000 business premises that have not been captured. So, you can imagine the benefit of capturing this informal sector into the tax net.”

The commissioner reiterated the fact that the tax system in the state remains friendly and that most businesses can afford to pay the meagre tax being requested of them.

He said because Plateau state does not have a business directory, the ministry of commerce and industries entered into partnership with an organisation that is currently compiling a business directory for the state so that whenever a business man visits the state, he can be acquainted with business environment.

He lamented the comatose state of many businesses in the state, stating that the Lalong administration was working hard to resuscitate them.

“For instance, he said – they have leased out the Britvic bottling plant in Barkin Ladi to Hummer Drinks, a reputable company which had already done the plan audit and is about to go into full production. And that the key products to be expected soon include – Gold Malt and Bottled Water. About JIB, he said it had been leased out to LIMACO Ltd and that plans to resuscitate it are currently ongoing.

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Peace has opened Plateau to external investors – Commissioner of Commerce