By Naomi Uzor

In an effort to increase access to power generation in Lagos state, Governor Babatunde Fasola, said the Lagos state government has concluded plans to go into power distribution.

The Governor disclosed this at the closing ceremony of the 2010 Lagos International Trade Fair, tagged “Promoting Business Confidence to Enhance economic recovery”, adding that the state government have recorded great success in the area of power generation and are now poise to engage in distribution and that  increase in power generation would boost the standard of living and economy.

According to him, to achieve the feats the state government have gone into partnership with el Sewedy of Egypt, a company that specialised in the production of electric transformers and that the government recognise the importance of power as a key infrastructure to the industrial development and economic growth.

He noted that the state government have initiated several Independent Power projects (IPP)  to guarantee constant power supply of electricity and ultimately unleash the full entrepreneurial energy of the state economy and that most of the IPP projects have been commissioned and already generate electricity channeled to economic use.

Fashola pointed out that the state government was mindful of the challenges posed by the ever-changing business environment to the survival and growth of the business in the state adding that the success of the private sector would translate into the state prosperity and as part of the efforts to create adequate enabling environment for the private sector to thrive that effort was been made to consolidate and harmonise tax administration.

“The state government recognise the need to support the effort of the members of the business community operating in the informal sector of the state’s economy and has therefore launched the Lagos business directory which is a compendium of over 50,000 micro businesses operating in the state.

I am proud to say that the enlistment of these businesses in the directory has afforded a good number of them the opportunity to transit into the formal sector as a result of increased patronage of their products and services by the members of the public” he stated.

In a bid to combat crime in the state, Fashola said the state is partnership with the Organised Private Sector instituted the Lagos state security trust fund as part of measures to protect lives and properties in the state. Using the platform of the fund, patrol vehicles, motorbikes, armored personnel carriers, helicopters and other crime fighting equipment have been procured and handed over to the state police command to further strengthen its readiness and capability to prevent and fight crime in the state.