By; FUNMI ADERINTO, Kaduna
Kaduna State has faulted the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report for the four quarters of 2021, which included the state among the 24 that failed to attract any Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) last year.
In a statement issued by the Executive Secretary of Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency (KADIPA) Khalil Nur Khalil on Wednsday, the government pointed out that the state’s capital importation for the year 2021 was not captured in the report.
Khalil argued that the state attracted Zipline, a United States-based medical drone supply company, whose business address is in Lagos State but operates in Kaduna state.
In the report, NBS disclosed that the value of capital importation into Nigeria dropped from $9.68 billion in 2020, to $6.7 billion in 2021.
According to the report, the 24 states which did not attract FDI include Adamawa, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ondo, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
The Executive Secretary said that ‘’we are not really supposed to be on that list, given that government attracted Zipline to the state, which is $1.5 million worth of investment.
‘’ So, going by the NBS report, we are ahead of Akwa Ibom which had $0.74 million, Ekiti ($0.50 million), Kwara ($0.23) million and Abia ($0.01 million), while Rivers and Delta had a $1.0 million investment each in 2021,’’ he clarified.
The Executive Secretary disclosed that Zipline will be operating in three sites when it rolls out fully, arguing that the sites will serve the entire health facilities in the three senatorial districts of Kaduna state.
According to him, the company will minimize bottlenecks like bad roads, expiring of products due to over stocking, unavailability of medical commodities at health facilities during emergencies and products not getting to remote areas, when Zipline’s facilities commence full operations;
