Oyo State Government has said work on its Ibadan Dry Port project is in progress.

Director-General, Oyo State Investment and Public, Private Partnership Agency, Segun Ogunwuyi, disclosed this to journalists in Ibadan on Friday.

 The dry port project is a tripartite investment opportunity involving the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, on behalf of the Federal Government, the state government and a private investor. Ogunwuyi also said his agency would hand over the moribund Agbowo Shopping Complex to a concessionaire that met the conditions set by the state government for the execution of the project, noting that the agreement had been finalised.

According to him, Pacesetter Asphalt Plant and Quarry, Ijaiye has already been given to a concessionaire.

He said, “The second one is the Agbowo Shopping Complex; we have been on that and I am happy to say that by next week (this week), the governor will be handing over the asset to an investor on a concession basis. These are two critical assets of the state that we have been able to give to concession aires since we came on board.

“We have touched on basically all aspects of our mandate; we are primarily in charge of concessioning government assets and we have done four major ones. We have given concession for the asphalt and quarry plant that we have in Ijaiye, that is somewhere around Moniya, a private investor is running it profitably and the government of Oyo State gets a percentage of the revenue when sales are made.

“Because it is a concession, Oyo State did not put one naira into the project; it costs the government nothing.

“What we did was to get investors that can run the business profitably and we negotiated with them based on the quantum of investment they want to put in, how long they will have the concession and the revenue that is accruable to Oyo State from that.”