Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has opened his book of lamentation to any one that cares to read.
The governor speaking at an event organised by First Securities Discount House (FSDH) Group, entitled: “A Global Pandemic: Local Realities and Peculiarities – A View from the Frontlines,” said; “We have been caught in a very delicate situation between managing COVID-19 on one hand and managing hunger and sustaining an economy that is not only depended on commercial activities in Lagos alone, but also other States across the federation. We have had weeks of engagement with players in fast-moving consumer goods sector and part of the measures we are taking is that, we are giving them additional clearance to work for longer hours.”
“Besides, we initiated what we called Register-to-Open, which is a thorough guideline to help the residents ahead of the full re-opening. Some of the things we will be seeing in the four-page guideline is, how we want to manage space at various places of business and what numbers of personnel and clients we expect at a given period, which must be based on the sizes of the facilities. As we prepared for this phased re-opening, we are giving priority to sectors that have higher number of labour.”
“The re-opening will not be done in haste, but construction and manufacturing sectors will be accorded high priority for full re-opening, given the large number of employment they generate. Entertainment, hospitality and aviation industries will be considered in the second phase of intervention.”
“The weeks of inertia in the economy also had significant impact on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), millions of small-scale businesses operating in the State can completely fold up if the economy is not fully reactivated.”
“In addition to granting three-month moratorium to MSMEs that applied for loan facilities at the Lagos State Employment Trust Funds (LSETF), the State Government has started compiling data of registered MSMEs in the State for operational support that would cushion the effect of economic slowdown on their businesses.”
“The other part of our intervention is our conversation with big corporations in various sectors on the requirements they may want from us to ensure that they do not retrench their staff in this emergency period. This conversation is very important. The companies have given us a retinue of incentives they want us to give and these are the things that will affect the State’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). We are willing to make this sacrifice to prevent loss of livelihood for millions of our citizens.”
“Lagos has been affected both on the healthcare and economy sides. We have had to take a deep dive into our budget and have about 25 per cent cut, which is not very good number for us. This is the time we need to continue to spend to stave off pressure on our citizens. However, we need to be prudent at this time and cut unimportant expenditures. Salary is one thing we cannot even touch.”
“In terms of direct economy, entertainment industry, hospitality, land transportation and aviation businesses have been affected significantly. These sectors are large employers of labour. We are thinking through on how to reset these sectors in a graduated manner and bring back the economy on the full swing.”