SOS to SAS on Borno investment
The rationale behind writing you this missive is to bring to your notice the pitiable condition of the staff of the Borno Investment Company Limited, a parastatal of the Borno State Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the only financial institution owned solely by the Borno State Government. As Your Excellency is reading this message, […]
The rationale behind writing you this missive is to bring to your notice the pitiable condition of the staff of the Borno Investment Company Limited, a parastatal of the Borno State Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the only financial institution owned solely by the Borno State Government. As Your Excellency is reading this message, it would interest you to note that the staff of the Borno Investment Company have not been paid their salaries for the period of Five (5) months. This condition speaks volumes of the failure of the State Government to appreciate the services and efforts of the Investment Company to the development of the state.
With the benefit of hindsight, the Borno Investment Company was established in 1987 by the then Military Governor, Major Abdulmuminu Aminu (Rtd) with the sole aim of harnessing the economic potentialities of the state for local and foreign investors among other mandates. However, when General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida created Yobe State in 1991, the capital investment of the company was shared on 45% and 55% basis between the two states. It then had the famous Nguru Oil Mill Company, the Nigerian Food Company LTD, the Nitel Shoes & Tannery Company and the Borno Wire & Nails Industry among others as its subsidiaries…
Notwithstanding the above, Borno Investment Company continued to wax stronger by performing its statutory responsibilities satisfactorily to the envy of other sister investment companies in Nigeria. It participated in various national and international fora and also immensely contributed to the organization of Regional and International Trade Fairs in the country. The company at a point, had several interests in quoted and unquoted companies.
However, sometimes in 1997, during the regime of Military Governor, Augustine Aniegbo, Borno State in its quest to arrest the perennial water shortage being experienced then, especially with the seeming breakdown of the multi-million naira Water Treatment Plant along Alau Dam Area received the sum of N108 million (One hundred and eight million naira only) as loan from Borno Investment Company.
Part of the money was also used in rejuvenating one of the shining Five-Star Hotels in the state, the Maiduguri International Hotel (MIH). In fact, but for the financial loan/aid provided by the Borno Investment Company to the State Government then, only God knows what would have been the fate of the hotel and the Water Treatment Plant by now. Unfortunately, since then, tireless efforts made by successive Chief Executives of the Investment Company to get the said loan repaid by the State Government proved futile.
By way of digression, if one would go by the gigantic edifices built by the Investment Companies of North-eastern States of Bauchi, Adamawa, Gombe, Yobe and Taraba as office accommodations as well as their investments and membership of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, one would be baffled to conclude that the Borno State Investment Company is seriously in a cadaverous state.
For instance, just of recent, Yobe State Government conceptualised and laid a foundation stone of a multi-billion naira mall in the high brow Central Area of Abuja on behalf of Yobe Investment and Property Company with the aim of not only creating employment opportunities for the teeming youths of Yobe State, but invariably bring about revenue of at least N200 million annually to the meager resources the state receives from the Federation Account. Haba! For God’s sake, when was Yobe State carved out of Borno State Your Excellency? Isn’t it a challenge to the Borno State Government on whose very eyes Yobe State was created in August 1991.
Isn’t it an irony that the Borno Investment Company, the mother of the Yobe State Investment Company, is not only accommodated in a rented house ever since it was established in 1987, but cannot even cater for the welfare of its staff not to talk of attending to some of its obligations as it ought to? When I see the various giant strides achieved by these sister Investment Companies in Northern Nigeria and Yobe Investment Company in particular, my heart bleeds, especially taking into account the fact that I once worked with the Borno Investment Company for more than a decade and I am still proud to have once served it meritoriously.
Meanwhile, Your Excellency may wish to note that efforts made by the Borno Investment Company over the years in providing training development of its staff who are citizens of the state need not be over-emphasized or obliterated. At the moment, the company can boast of her former employees who had been exceptional in their own right in capacity building and industry at their present places of endeavours. For instance, places such as the Corporate Affairs Commission, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Finance, World Bank Assisted Institutions, the Hague, some buoyant Financial Institutions, are where you find the former staff of the company providing professional and quality human resource leadership/manpower.
Therefore, the Borno State Government under your dynamic leadership should as a matter of urgency and in the spirit of patriotism, is implored to come to the aid of Borno Investment Company Limited, the only financial institution owned solely by the Borno State Government by providing all the necessary enabling environment to it as well as paying what is due to the staff so that they contribute their quota towards human development. Pathetically, within just 3 years, more than 10 staff of the company have died of depression and pressure related to precarious state of the company over the years vis-à-vis their fate.
A stitch in time saves nine, Your Excellency!
Mohammed Habib, Corporate Affairs Commission, Plot 420, Tigris Crescent, Off Aguiyi Ironsi Street, Maitama District, Abuja.