Daily Independent Online.
*
Thursday, July 01, 2004.
NIPC
shortlists five firms for N4.3 bn World Bank SMEs project
By Sanya Adejokun
senior
correspndent,
Abuja
The Nigerian Investment Promotion
Commission (NIPC) has short-listed five companies for the execution of the$32
million (N4.384 billion) World Bank’s small and medium scale enterprises
project in Nigeria.
The companies include
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Emerging Market Economies Limited, International
Development Ireland Limited and The Louis Berger Group Incorporation.
NIPC’s Director of Policy Advocacy
and Project, Alhaji Lawan Gana Latenwa, told journalists that the pilot project
would take off in three states of the federation- Lagos, Abia and Kaduna.
Latenwa said “We have got assurance
from the minister of finance that if it conforms with the performance figure it
would be extended to other states and more money would also be brought into the
project in order to cover other states.”
He added that, “We received 86
expressions of interests from different companies, both nationally and
internationally. The commission selected six companies that conform to the
eligibility requirement; out of which only five of the selected companies
completed and submitted their bid documents. But today we are going to open the
bid document of the five companies.”
Already, a five-man evaluation committee,
including Executive Director, Bank of Industry, Mr. O. Okonkwo and NIPC
procurement consultant, Mr. Femi Oye, have been appointed to conduct due
diligence on the documents.
According to Latenwa, the committee has been given five days
to complete its assignment and will submit its recommendation on July 5, as the
request for proposal document has been given to each member of the.
The NIPC director explained that there are four components in
the implementation of the World Bank SMEs project, which involves business
development services component, investment climate component, and the
public-private Sector development partnership component.
Under the business development services
component, Latenwa said five industries among which are catfish, rice
production and services have been picked for development.
“We are also going to look at the
services providers, consultants and other services providers that we would now
target and assist in order to see that the entrepreneurs are given the
necessary training, expertise and information that they required to do business
in Nigeria,” he added.
The NIPC is the project implementation
secretariat for the $32 million World Bank’s small and medium scale
enterprises project.
