By Favour
Nnabugwu
The quest to make the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, NIPC, one of the best Investment Promotion Agency, IPA, in the world has commenced as the Executive Secretary, Mrs. Saratu Umar has set in motion, various strategies in place to transform and re-engineer the organization in order to deliver on its mandate.

Umar in line with her transformation programme, organized a training workshop in conjunction with the Institute of Workforce Development, IWDEV, for both Senior and Management cadre of staff with the theme “Strategic Institutional Transformation Programme” in Abuja.

In her remarks , NIPC boss enjoined the staff to embrace her vision and transformation programme to re-engineer and position the Commission to deliver on its mandate, as “there is global competition in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to any economy in the world”. She said her transformation agenda is to re-strategize in order to realize the vision and mission of the Commission and “make it the best IPA in the world, advance the country’s economy and ensure that the workforce is adequately motivated to carry out the assignment”, adding, “We need to deal with the situation on ground and move forward”.

She noted that many African countries are implementing aggressive market strategies in order to attract FDI, and Nigeria cannot be an exception, stressing that “NIPC is the only Government institution that is mandated to promote and attract investment into the economy; therefore we must rise to the challenge and do it professionally”.

Umar emphasized that if the Commission is not repositioned and re-engineered to meeting up with  modern trends and skills of investment promotion, it may be difficult for the institution to achieve its mandate, stressing that “I will focus seriously on sound corporate governance practices; effective risk management framework; appropriate best in class Information Technology Infrastructure; enterprise – wide performance management system; standardized processes and policies and organizational culture of international best practices and a high level of professionalism”.

Other areas she listed as her vision  are “certification by International Standard Organisation (ISO) to attain process maturity and enhanced NIPC’s service delivery, reliability and efficiency; business process optimization, re-engineering and management for efficiency, timeliness and effectiveness; rating by an international rating agency to enhance NIPC’s standing and credibility; accountability, continuous innovation and dynamism to reflect a global and world class outlook; effective communication and engagements with various stakeholders and staff welfare and motivation”.