Kano govt seeks FG’s support on economic diversification

The Kano state government has appealed for Federal Government assistance in its economic diversification plans, to enable it boost its revenue drive.

The state Commissioner for Finance, Shehu Muhammad-Kura made the appeal on Wednesday, in Kano, while exchanging views with the Chairman, Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr. Sunday Okon-Anyang, who led a delegation to his office.

Muhammad-Kura said that the state Ministry of Commerce, in conjunction with the Federal Government, was exploring ways to evolve sound policies that would attract foreign investors to the state.

When developed, he said, the policies would encourage the state to harness its natural resources, including the agricultural sector, of the economy.

“Time has come for the state to move away from her overdependence on revenues from federation allocations and diversify its internally generated revenue through various fronts” he said.

Muhammad-Kura described the assessment tour of economic diversification projects and programs by the RMAFC as of great benefit to the state and the country’s economy in the light of the overdependence on oil and gas.

He said that the state was blessed with abundant human and natural resources, which had remained untapped because of the federal system which gave the federal government absolute power to regulate and control the nation’s natural resources.

“The state is endowed with silicon, silver, glass, granite and gold, but exploitation of these resources require approval from the federal government and intensive capital investments,” the commissioner said.

The commissioner noted that the structures put in place by the state government and the AKK gas pipeline would, however, fast track the industrialisation of the state.

In a remarks, Mr. Sunday Okon-Anyang , Chairman, RMAFC, said that they were in the state on an assessment tour of economic diversification projects.

Okon-Anyang observed that the country’s over dependence on oil and gas was both dangerous and unhealthy, hence the need to seek for alternative source of revenue that were in abundance in Kano and the country, as a whole.

The chairman advised the Kano state government to improve on it’s Internally Generated Revenue “so as to be on right track.”