|
 Daily
Independent Online.
* Monday,June 14, 2004.
LSDPC embarks on cost-saving measures
By Dada Jackson
Senior Property & Environment
Correspondent, Lagos
There are strong indications
that paucity of funds may cripple the activities of Lagos State
Development And Property Corporation (LSDPC).
Daily Independent gathered that the financial status of
the corporation in the last 24 months dipped, to the extent that it could
no longer pay most of the contractors that executed some housing projects
for it.
The cause of the paucity of funds may not be unconnected
with the elaborate housing projects embarked upon in the last four
years. These housing
estates, though most of them had been purchased, the contractors who
handled them, Daily Independent gathered, were still being owed.
It was gathered that the financial crisis rocking the
corporation, prompted the Lagos Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to
invite the former deputy-managing director of Oceanic Bank, Mr. Abiodun
Oki, to come and reposition the corporation under a new
nomenclature-managing director.
The governor, to turn around the fortunes of the ailing
corporation, specifically mandated Oki.
However, Daily Independent learnt that what he
met on ground was a debt of over N2 billion.
Some other drastic measures he took, included, a
directive to all assistant general managers, who are not departmental
heads to surrender their official vehicles, while those who are heads of
departments, should not keep their vehicles at home but that their
drivers should take them to the office every morning, and at the close of
business, take the officials home and return the vehicles to the pool.
However, this arrangement, Daily Independent
learnt, did not go down well with the drivers, who then lodged a formal
protest with the chief executive officer, who after much pressure
rescinded his decision. Instead of parking the vehicles in the common
pool at the end of the day, the drivers were further directed to leave
them in the house of the officials.
Besides, he directed that any driver that was attached
to any top official must as a matter of rule, live very close to the
official. He further summoned a meeting of all heads of departments where
he told them the importance of coming to work at 8am. He warned that the
days of coming to work at the whims and caprice of the top management
staff were over.
Oki told them that those that were not ready to toe the
directive, ‘‘should either ship in or ship out’’ for as he puts it, ‘‘I
am coming from a disciplined background and could not afford to condone
any form of indolence.’’
He said that the governor gave him a mandate to come to
LSDPC and turn-around the place, adding that he could not afford to fail,
more so, when his Excellency gave him the mandate.
He also applied the big stick, when he
directed the head of the Marketing/Corporate Affairs Department, Mr.
Olusola Martins, to stop buying more than two newspapers everyday,
explaining that the corporation could not afford the jamboree of buying
10 different newspapers every day.
He added that ‘‘all the newspapers carry the same news
items daily except with some variations’’.
The managing director also directed that
the popular Home Ownership Made Easy (HOME) promo, introduced by the
Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed
Tinubu, as away of making
landlords out of
commoners residing in the state, did not escape the big stick of the LSDPC boss.
However, when Oki assumed office as the
new helmsman, he directed that the 25 flats that were scheduled to be given out to 25 lucky HOME promo winners, would
no longer be automatic.
According to him, the flats to be given out would
depend on the volume of tickets sold, adding that if the total amount
realised from the sale of tickets could only accommodate 10 flats, then
only 10 flats would be given out.
He argued that the corporation was not a
charity organisation and therefore, could not afford to be giving out 25
flats quarterly.
Oki said the corporation was not buoyant,
adding that financial prudence would be the key word in the new look
LSDPC.
Since Oki became the
corporation’s leader he had been going about his assignment with serious
cost saving measures, which have not been well received by majority of
the staff, especially the senior members of staff, who see his approach
as too draconian.
|
