Lekki Free Trade Zone: Lagos tasks investors on community engagement

Lagos State government has charged investors in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, LFTZ, corridor to step up their Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR), to the host communities, contending that this was one of the ways to secure the multi-billion dollars investment in the corridor.
The government, while giving the counsel at the weekend, said the administration of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was passionate about the investment in the corridor as it was the future hub of commerce and industry in Africa.

Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Lekki Worldwide Investments Limited, Popson Jaiyesimi, who spoke at a 3-day workshop on “Communication and Team Skills in Effective Interfacing on Community Service and Relations for Stakeholders in the LFZ Communities” at the La Campagne Beach Resort, Lekki, Lagos, said CSR had become so critical that it could not be neglected by investors willing to secure their investments.

“We have a strategic plan to move Lekki Worldwide Investments limited forward and one of the things we identified is how to get the investors and the communities talking and we decided that there should be a workshop of information sharing between the investors and the communities. We are just the moderators.

“The governor is quite keen on this project because Lekki Free Trade Zone is the future of Nigeria businesses and it is a product of research. The fundamental thing is to make sure that there is security and it comes when the communities are walking in tandem with the investors.

“This is to keep them talking because when you keep the people around the table, they share their fears and sometimes, you find out that it is just miscommunication as there is no issue at all,” he said.

Jaiyesimi added that the state government had understudied the Niger Delta crisis and what led to the agitation, saying that government would find a way out to address the needs of the people in Lekki in order to ensure the projects in the area were not truncated.

“We have found out that we need to get it right, because we have multi-billion dollars investments in that corridor and government has spent so much money in compensation and investment in the corridor. We are interested in knowing what the investors are putting down as Corporate Social Responsibilities to the communities,” he said.