Palton Morgan, a leading Real Estate group in Nigeria, in partnership with the Lagos Business School, hosted senior civil servants from Lagos and Ogun States to an economic capacity development and competitiveness strategy course at the LBS Pan-Atlantic University campus, Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos.
The 3-day program, which held from March 16 to 18, 2022, under the theme, ‘Enhancing Economic Competitiveness’, was designed to boost the effectiveness of public sector stakeholders through exposure to global best practices on institutional collaborations, PPP dynamics, sustainable competitive advantages, and cluster participation mechanism for inclusive national growth.
The well attended course had as participants, senior government officials and public sector stakeholders in the built sector of the economy, including special assistants to governors, permanent secretaries and directors at ministries and heads of MDAs relevant to the Real Estate sectors of both States.
The course facilitators comprised of a host of faculty heads in Business, Strategy, and Economic Planning, including Dr. Nkemdilim Iheanachor, member of the Strategy Group at LBS; Dr. Dolapo Tukumi, Course Organizer; Dr. Frank Ojadi, Member, Faculty of Operations Management atLBS; and Lead Facilitator & Manager at LBS, Oreva Atanya.
Others include John Uwajumogu, Partner at Ernst & Young Nigeria; George Agu, Founder/CEO, ActiveEdge Technologies Limited; and Ife Adedoyin, Senior Executive, Deloitte;
Speaking on the purpose behind the initiative, Chairman of Palton Morgan Holdings, Femi Olubanwo noted that “although LBS usually has the course curriculum attended by corporate executives across sectors for capacity and economic development, we decided to sponsor this course to enrich those who regulate our sector with current knowledge of economic strategies and the power of synergies so that they also can have a contemporary understanding of where the people they regulate are coming from”.
On the choice of Lagos and Ogun, Olubanwo further opined that both are contiguous states. “The two States are almost one state. However, we found out that they work in silos, but we saw the benefits of bringing them together.”
“If this initiative goes as we hoped, we will find Lagos and Ogun states actually working together on projects, on planning, on development, and that will be for the benefits of our society and our sector in particular. And we at Palton Morgan are delighted to be at the vanguard of making that happen”. He concluded.
Delphine Misan-Arenyeka, Non-Executive Director at Palton Morgan, further affirmed the motive for facilitating the training for government officials as “part of our social responsibility to the states that we play in. We are building the capacity of senior public servants and hopefully, it will translate to their subordinates, and ultimately result in greater success in policy and regulations.”
“We actually looked at the business of Palton Morgan and the value chain and felt that we can bridge the gap between us and our stakeholders in the public sector. We wanted to stimulate a synergy such that they will understand our language when we go to them for approvals and permits that will enhance development in the sector”. Misan-Arenyeka explained.
Speaking on the module ‘Introduction to Economic Competitiveness’ and ‘The Process of Economic Development’, Dr. Nkemdilim emphasized the importance of integrating competitiveness to enhance good governance and attract investment: “Your strength lies in the ability to produce and create an environment that is conducive for attracting investment, not just Foreign Direct Investment, but also local investment”.
In her presentation titled ‘Real Estate Development and Reuse’, Deloitte Senior Executive, Ife Adedoyin, touched on the intentionality of strategic policies to guide the built sector against peculiar challenges. “The Public sector should incentivize land purchase and titling process by giving some value-adds for every landed property bought and developed immediately”.
She also stressed the importance of integrated competitive policy, saying “Real estate is fundamentally linked to economic development, so why don’t both states collaborate? Ogun has more land while Lagos has more businesses and economic opportunities. So, Ogun builds more houses, and Lagos provide more viable economic opportunities; and a certain cost is charged from a sustainable transport scheme”.
The course beneficiaries on their part expressed gratitude for the opportunity provided by Palton Morgan to scale their career capacity with dynamic and relatable industry resources and comparative trends from across the globe.
They all affirmed the importance of collaborations for both states to maximize their economic strengths whilst integrating their competitiveness as well as encouraging Palton Morgan for more partnership initiatives to consolidate on growing the potentials of the two states.
In her assessment, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Physical and Urban Planning, Lagos State, Abiola Kosegbe, “Definitely, there is a lot to take home from here. The fact that you have been able to select people from the built environment to be here, is saying that Palton Morgan is interested in the development of the sector”.
Her counterpart at the Lagos State Ministry of Housing, Wasiu Akewusola, iterated that the training has been very significant for capacity development of the civil servants present. “I have to commend the organizers of this wonderful program. It is an eye-opener”.
For Olufunmilayo Sorunke, the Director of ICT and Business Development, Ogun State Housing Corporation, “I came with a high expectation, and I have learned to develop new business strategies and not business as usual”.
The Director, Admin. and Personnel at the Ogun State Property and Investment Company, Taiwo Ogunyoowo, commended Palton Morgan for making the program happen saying “the partnership is impressive. Whoever is billed to be here and are not here in fact, they are missing a lot and when the next opportunity beckons, they should not miss it at all”.
Commenting on the partnership initiative with the public sector, Group Chief Operating Officer at Palton Morgan, Nidal Turjman, stressed that the real estate giant’s contributions to socio-economic development are extensive, “we have contributions that cover the real estate value chains. It could be from property management, construction, logistics, investment advisory, sales and marketing and so on”.
“These are the first course participants; however, at Palton Morgan, we are looking up to more contributions from stakeholders in this sector so that we can all contribute to growing the economy of Nigeria”. Nidal nudged.
Palton Morgan Holdings is the parent company of PropertyMart Real Estate Investment Company, Grenadines Homes, The Oceanna, and Paltonloitte. The economic capacity development and competitive strategy course is one of the sundry corporate responsibility initiatives and interventions of the group to impact the sector and the society.