Abuja: The Sea Empowerment and Research Centre (SEREC) has urged the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to audit industrial projects and establish mechanisms to recover stalled investments. The Centre’s Head of Research, Mr. Eugene Nweke, made the call in a Policy Note made available to newsmen on Saturday in Abuja.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, the document titled ‘Industrial Clusters in the FCT: Stopping Waste, Unlocking Abuja as Nigeria’s Productive and Economic Capital’ highlights the need to measure actual economic outcomes from industrial projects. Nweke recommended a 90-day comprehensive audit of major industrial and economic clusters to establish land allocations, beneficiaries, project costs, capital deployed, and infrastructure delivered. The audit should also determine operational enterprises, jobs created, tax and revenue contributions, outstanding obligations, reasons for delays, contractual milestones, and current legal status.
He stressed the importance of avoiding investment announcements without proper investment accounting and suggested the establishment of an FCT Industrial Infrastructure Recovery Fund. This fund would focus resources on strategic industrial zones rather than spreading interventions across numerous projects. Priority areas should include essential infrastructure such as access roads, electricity, water, drainage, security, telecommunications, waste management, rail connectivity, and digital infrastructure.
Nweke further recommended milestone-based Public-Private Partnership (PPP) governance to ensure that industrial land allocations progress from infrastructure development to factory construction and production. These milestones should encompass equipment installation, commencement of production, employment creation, export performance, and revenue generation. He cautioned that industrial land should not become a store of speculative value, and emphasized the need for transparent legal mechanisms for recovery, reallocation, or restructuring when contractual obligations are persistently abandoned.
Additionally, Nweke proposed an Abuja Investable Enterprise Programme to help businesses improve corporate governance, financial reporting, export readiness, and technology commercialization. This program should also provide access to development finance, investor matchmaking, environmental, social, and governance compliance, and capital-market preparation, with the ultimate objective of producing bankable and investable Abuja enterprises.
He also suggested the creation of an FCT Industrial Coordination and Investment Desk to link the FCTA, Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), Abuja Investments, and relevant Federal Government agencies. This mechanism would coordinate investors, developers, and financial institutions, eliminate regulatory duplication, resolve bottlenecks, and publish periodic performance reports.
Furthermore, Nweke proposed an ‘Abuja Industrial Productivity Index’ to annually assess major industrial clusters using measurable indicators of economic performance. These indicators should include capital deployed, infrastructure completed, operational factories, jobs created, local value added, exports, taxes generated, private investment, and land utilization. He emphasized that industrial clusters should be treated as economic-production systems rather than real-estate projects, with success measured by tangible economic outcomes.
In light of Abuja’s reported increase in monthly Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from about N9 billion to more than N40 billion, Nweke highlighted the potential of institutional reforms. He stressed that the focus should be on creating more taxable economic activities, which requires the development of factories, technological companies, exporters, logistics enterprises, professional services, innovation hubs, and globally competitive businesses. Nweke called for a shift from designation to deployment, from land banking to industrial production, and from investment announcements to investment accountability.