By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Muhammad Musa Bello, has promised to make Abuja, one of the greenest cities in the world and among the tops in the ease of doing business.
Mr Bello made this commitment when the delegation of Abuja Business Forum (ABF) led by Arch. Tunde Imolehin, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja to introduce the idea behind the forum.
To this end, the Minister said that the FCT Administration (FCTA) will partner with ABF to adopt a standard model for gardens and green parks to enhance the quality of business and leisure facilities in the Nation’s Capital.
“We will continue to support you (ABF) just as in the past more specifically on the ‘change gardens’ concept because we have a lot of gardens and locations within the Federal Capital City (FCC) itself.
“We really like to make it serve as a real model of what a garden should be and we will like to partner very closely with you in this respect you can be rest assured that is something we are going to do,” he said.
Mr Bello said that one of the cardinal objectives and policies of “this administration is to be able to make the Nigeria business environment more user friendly”.
He said, “You know when this administration came in, the position of Nigeria on the world ranking index on the ease of doing business was at a certain level that really was not very reflective of our potentials as a nation and this administration through the Minister of Trade and Investment have tried to up the scale and to move us to at least by 20-points on that index and we are getting there.
“We have keyed into this concept and that is why abuja business forum is something that makes a lot of sense to us because it fits into our policy.we will work with you and see that it’s a reality.”
Speaking further, Mr Bello tasked the “Abuja Business Forum to encourage investors to invest in mass housing in the city.
“For investors I think as part of what you will discuss during the forum is to let them know that there is housing deficit in respect of lower income earner and middle income accommodation,” he added.
Earlier, Mr Imolehin noted that the vision of ABF is to put Abuja on the world map where it can compete favourably with any city in the world in terms of ease of doing business.
He said the “aim is to create a mega city that can compete favourably with any city in the world in terms of the ease of doing business.
“The Abuja business forum is looking at welcoming people on the ease of doing business in Abuja has to improve to encourage people to invest in Abuja because we are having an increase in population and people want to earn a living.
“We are going to create an environment for that,” he said.
Adedapo Adesanya