The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Kogi Enterprise Development Agency (KEDA), Hon. Kadiri Mohammed Okeji says the agency is committed to transforming the state into a viable economic hub.
Speaking with newsmen shortly after presenting the 2025 budget for KEDA before lawmakers in the Kogi State House of Assembly in Lokoja, Okeji said Governor Usman Ododo is fully committed to KEDA’s vision.
he said “it is about transforming human being entirely to entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship runs in my blood because I have never worked since I graduated from the University, did Masters. I have been an entrepreneur all my life. Coming to Kogi State to develop entrepreneurs is something I can do even though you wake me up from my sleep. I have done so much since I resume this office in March 2024. As I speak, we already have a fashion factory running in Okene, Kogi Central. It is operational.
“We are turning the place to be an industrial hub. So many skill acquisition centres are coming in there. The fashion center is already up and running. Catering skills acquisition, metal, energy innovation, and others will come in there. We are going to push the GSM village to that location so that we can have clusters of businesses, including agriculture.
“We are coming up with cluster agricultural programs. We have synergized with Bank of Industry and some commercial banks that has beautiful programmes for entrepreneurs like soft loans, which will go a long way to help our entrepreneurs and have a direct impact to the economic ecosystem of the state.”
Okeji told newsmen that the agency will recall some of the disengaged staff as soon as the second phase of the program kicks off.
“When I resumed work as the MD CEO of KEDA, I discovered that there were people who were being owned 11 months backlog of salaries. I was struggling to pay them. By the time we had funds, I was able to pay them all their backlogs of salaries.
“After paying them, I don’t want to repeat what the old management did. Initially, I gave them temporarily disengagement but I had to fully disengage them so that when the program comes back again, they will now be the first to benefit.
“We are expecting the second phase of the program to kick off soon. When it surface, we will recall them because they are already experienced before we can employ fresh ones.”
