The Abia State Commissioner for Trade Commerce and Industry ,Dr Chimezie Isaac Ukaegbu has promised to use his position to attract foreign investors,raise the internally generated revenue of the State and in turn build a well- organized market for business to thrive.
Dr Chimezie who made this known while interacting with newsmen shortly after his inauguration as Commissioner believes his impact will be felt as an industrialist in the cabinet of Governor Alex Otti to enable the administration achieve its mandate of improving the ease of doing business.
The UK based entrepreneur who also had interface with the Ministry of Trade and Commerce maintained that the current situation in Abia State requires collective efforts of everyone to improve the Ministry.
“My vision for the State through the Ministry is to bring in investors, increase the Internally Generated Revenue IGR for the state, alleviate the pains of people and have a well organized market”.
He said that the developers who’ll help to drive the process of improving the State’s economy are already in Aba and have started with the projects.
“Our markets are all in clusters but we will be bringing them together by building befitting stalls for them. It’s only when you make the environment conducive that people will thrive with their businesses,” he said.
Reacting to the menace of touts around the markets, the Commissioner added that the new system of revenue collection in the State especially the Treasury Single Account (TSA), will discourage touting and get them out of business.
He further stressed that the new administration will not tolerate any form of touting in the State , saying that the government is prepared to resist the touts and their activities.
He reiterated that the State Governor, Dr Alex Otti, had set up a committee on street trading with a view to ensuring the best way to relocate them without throwing them completely out of business.
Dr. Ukaegbu also revealed that plans had been concluded to relocate the parks at Isigate Umuahia, insisting that “without those parks, there won’t be clusters of markets there, so first we’ll relocate them to Okigwe and Aba parks and build a central median for free flow of movement in and around the Isigate.”
