SOUTH EAST NIGERIA: South East governors sign MOU on SENEC

The establishment of the South East Nigeria Economic Commission (SENEC) has received the blessings of the governors of the South East states of Nigeria. The states’ governors who approved the initiative aimed at formally establishing SENEC include Mr. Peter Obi of Anambra State, Mr. Sullivan Chime, Enugu State, Chief Theodore Orji, Abia State, and Chief Ikedi Ohakim, Imo State. They appended their signatures to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signalling the commencement of the operations of the Commission.

The chairman of the SENEC Steering Committee, Engineer Chris Okoye also signed the document. The overall goal of SENEC is to serve the purpose of facilitation of investments in the South East zone, development of large physical infrastructural schemes, implementation of programmes for sustainable institutions, creation of centres for human capacity building development, development of coordinated framework for the formulation of public policies and plans.

SENEC Initiative is a product of the recommendations of the stakeholders’ forum on industrial clusters held in September 26, 2006 in Enugu under the auspices of the African Institute for Applied Economics (AIAE). The Institute on January 15, 2007, initiated the process by constituting an interim steering committee to midwife the establishment of SENEC. Based on feedback and revisions, the sub-committee published the draft framework document, worked on the MOU, which has now become the operational tool for the initiative.

Mr. Sola Oluwadare, the Communications Manager of AIAE in a release stated that the MOU is a base document to guide stakeholders in the zone to decide the character, structure and functions of the Commission. Oluwadare noted that the document now lays out the strategic framework in terms of context and rationale, international best practices, relevance and impact of the Commission, and has therefore become a working tool.