Ogun adopts TRIMS to reduce cost of doing business

Committed to increasing trade competitiveness and reducing cost of doing business among operators of Micro, Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (MSMEs), Ogun State government, through the office of Millenium Development Goals, has signed an agreement with German Agency for International Development (GIZ), which gave birth to Trade Route Incident Mapping System (TRIMS), targeted at removing illegal road blocks, bribe taking and other bottlenecks on Nigerian trade routes. HAFSAT ABIOLA-COSTELLO, special adviser to Ogun State government on MDGs, in this interview with RAZAQ AYINLA, expresses what government intends to achieve with the new trade promotional policy. Excerpts:

What informed the establishment of TRIMS?

We have been doing a lot of studies in Ogun State independently, and also in partnership with the German Agency for International Development (GIZ). In these studies, it shows clearly that our traders are experiencing obstacles, disturbances whenever they are trying to move goods, and you know Ogun is the Gateway state; we are the major link between the West African countries. We are also the major link with all the states of Nigeria and Lagos, which is the only mega city in sub-Saharan Africa, and within Ogun itself, we are also the host of highest concentration of industries, there are lots traders in the state and they have to move goods within and beyond Nigeria.

So, for them to be experiencing obstacles in their movement, experiencing unplanned cost in terms of Customs or Police demanding for payments. We wanted to be able to manage that, we wanted to, first of all, understand that and to be able to see what we can do to reduce those kinds of unplanned cost, so we decided to embark on this project.

What will be the achievements of the project in the long run, and how will it affect the MSMEs operating in the state?

First, the problem we face with reducing extra payments that the traders are paying in the course of moving goods in Ogun is that we don’t know the scale of the problem, we only know that a lot of traders complain. But how much money is being lost because people have been forced to make all these payments, we don’t know. It is difficult to collate the information because we are talking about hundreds of thousands of traders moving goods in a month. So, to be able to assess the problem accurately, to be able to have a sense of what is being done to increase the cost of doing business in the state, we decided to use technology and that is how this project came about.

So, traders are stopped when they are driving to the market and they are stopped individually or in group, and this project will allow us to know what is costing them everyday as they have to pay these payments to law enforcement agencies. So, with a telephone, they will send a message which is at low or free and they will let us know how long they were stopped, how much they had to pay, what kind of goods they are moving. Like produce from the farms, textiles, what kind of product, they will let us know.

All of these information will be collated in an online platform provided for in Kenya. What is it costing Ogun State daily, weekly, monthly or on an annual basis. I suspect that we are going to be shocked at the scale of cost to illegal road blocks. Right now, we are thinking that, may be the police demanded N50, N5,000 or N50,000, by the time we collate the collective experiences of traders, we will find out that such illegal road blocks cost can easily turn in N50 million per month. We want to have this information for us to have a tool with which we can engage with security agencies, so that they can see the scale of all these demands on the cost of doing business and for them to understand that it actually affects the competitiveness of our traders.

It is affecting future viability, future profitability and to advocate for the end of such extortion. In the end, we will be well informed about the cost to the state, the cost to the country, and we will use the information to ensure that we have a change in the way in which our security agencies, be it Customs, Police engage with our traders. They should be providing services to our traders not extorting money from them, not increasing the cost of doing business, not increasing the time it takes them to do business, not harassing them, but looking for a way to support our traders and not to harm trade in Ogun State. We hope that we will have increasingly successful businesses and enterprises operating in the state and better overall well-being of the economy.

Who are the key players in this project?

There are three partners in this project. There is an international partner, which is GIZ, Ogun State government and private sector, which is Ogun State Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (OGUNCCIMA). All the three partners are critical to the success of this project because GIZ is bringing technical expertise; GIZ helps us to conduct survey that helps us identify key challenges traders are facing that we are now tackling one after the other, and they are able to hire a technical expert who works with the World Bank and Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, who is providing technical backbone for the project and other kind of expertise.

Now, Ogun State has the motivation and political vision of His Excellency, Governor Ibikunle Amosun, which is to develop the state, to transform it and so, this project is very much in line with the governor’s vision and the governor is driving state engagement, and OGUNCCIMA is a private sector, and the direct beneficiary of this project. They stand to benefit and the traders are all with them. So, all of us form a coalition to work together and deliver this project.

In what way does this project aligns with Ogun State “Mission to Rebuild” and how will it tackle poverty and increase standard of living?

GIZ is to promote development and reduce poverty in the world. In Ogun State, we have a MoU signed with GIZ, and it is communicated that we have to work to reduce poverty and increase sustainable employment. They (GIZ) are using German tax payers’ money, that is provided by German government to promote that vision and mission, reduce poverty and increase employment in the state. Now, for us in Ogun State, the governor came with a mission to transform the state, called “Mission to Rebuild,” and is very much on that mission. We have seen physical transformation ongoing in the state, but we also need to build the capacity of the citizens to able to benefit from physical transformation, and this particular project is in line with that.

It allows our traders to reduce the cost of doing business and increase profitability, and they will benefit, which fulfils the governor’s promise to the citizens. It also helps in another respect that we stand to directly benefit. As our businesses are well in Ogun State, it also means more taxes because they will have more revenue to pay taxes on, which helps us in the state to continue to fund our “Mission to Rebuild,” to fund more roads, schools, hospitals and other goals of His Excellency.

Now, for the traders in the end, they will be the direct beneficiaries; they have been complaining about this kind of extortion, harassment, and have been wondering that nobody cares, this programme will tell them that we care. We are going to do what we can to stop it, we only need them to give us information so that we can stop it. With this project, traders will know that the governor has them in mind, and he is committed to their success.

Having seen different policies of government failed in the past, in what way does your government plan to ensure that this project outlives this administration?

One of the things that we have been trying to achieve with this project is to get the mobile networks to sign on to work with us and to see it as a form of CSR. So far, we have been moderately successful, we hope for greater success now that we are launching TRIMS in Ogun State. Ministry of Trade at the federal level is very committed to this project and they see Ogun State as just a pilot, they want it replicated across other 35 states, if it is successful in Ogun.

Even after His Excellency’s eight years in office, once we have demonstrated the success of this project, it should be a national project because the issue of Policemen or Customs officers harassing traders, demanding bribes from them and other forms of harassment is not limited to Ogun State alone, it is a national problem. So, once we have been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of this programme, it is our hope that it will become a national programme that is taking on by the Federal Government, and in that way, it will provide some level of support and sustainability.

But, in another way, once the mobile networks see the benefit of this project to traders, we hope that they can sign on to it by taking it as a form of CSR, so that the SMS sent by traders will be free to the traders and in that way, it takes care of the main cost of the project, ensuring that it is sustainable.