The Chairman, Kwara State Ease of Doing Business Council, Mrs Susan Oluwole, expressed this at the opening of a two-day stakeholders’ organised by the council in Ilorin on Thursday. Oluwole, who doubles as the Kwara Head of Service, said the meeting was organised to harvest the opinions of relevant stakeholders with a view to charting the way forward.

“We cannot just sit at the Council level and make recommendations. They know better and that is why we invited the major stakeholders so that we can make Kwara an investment-friendly state.

This is an evolving process that deserves engagement of traders, private and public sectors, levels of governance, captains of industries. “The passion, foresight and focus of His Excellency, Mallam AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq will make things different this time around. The Governor has given us the marching order to change the ranking of Kwara on ease of doing business,” Oluwole said.

The Special Assistant to Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq on Geographical Information System, Mr Shittu AbdulMutolib, said the meeting would give the council clearer insights into other issues that may not have been earlier identified. “We need to dialogue with those who are actually in the business sector in order to understand where we can help them grow their businesses.

“We cannot sit down in the back and propose policies and recommendations where we don’t actually know where exactly we can help. So, today’s meeting will give us an insight in going forward and make things better for everybody,” he said. On his part, the Secretary of the council, Mr Abdullah Abdulmajeed, said the council was part of the commitment of the governor to ensure that ease of doing business in the state received a boost in line with the Federal Government reform of business climate.

Abdulmajeed said the council has the mandate of ensuring that small and medium enterprises are assisted to do well. He noted that the engagement of critical stakeholders was to examine their views so that government can carry them along in the scheme of things. The council addressed the need for government to address the problem of insecurity, especially farmers/herders clashes with a view to allaying the fear of investors in the agricultural sector. The meeting also discussed the problem of infrastructural deficit and ensuring easy access to a loan for business growth, among issues.