Emir of Ilesha-Baruba and the Chairman of the Kwara State government integrated company, known as Harmony Holdings, Prof. Halidu Abubakar, in this interview with selected reporters, including ADEKUNLE JIMOH, dismissed rumours making the round that the company is planning to take over the state's ministries, agencies and parastatals, among other issues.

What is the ownership structure of Harmony Holdings?

Harmony Holdings is solely owned by the Kwara State Government. As you know, anybody, either a corporate organisation or individuals, can come together and own a company. Harmony Holdings is an integrated company and 100 percent of its shares are owned by the Kwara State government, which again is a normal thing. If you are from Kwara, it means that you are a stakeholder because Harmony Holdings is owned by your government.

Since Harmony Holdings started its operation, what are its goals and objectives?

Let us start from a background. All over the world, in order to promote development, we have what is called DFI - development finance institution. Harmony Holdings plays a dual role. It is what the name applies, holding company for government’s business interests. The whole idea of having Harmony Holdings is because government has diversified business interests. When we started development process in this country, government has diverse business interests; government was having interest in virtually everything. Over the years, it was realised that government had no business in this kind of business. Therefore, the best thing to do for some government was, they sold outright but for some governments, they leveraged on what they had by bringing together all the investments under a holding company. That is how Harmony Holdings came into being. It serves importantly as a DFI; it helps to generate funds for development. It also serves as a holding company to bring together government investments such as Kwara Investment and Property Limited. It is a very important company.

Initially, it was just an investment company. It was a fantastic idea. People came from all over the country to monitor what was happening there, but over the years, it died down. It operated Kwara Midlands, Kwara Foods, Riverside Food etc. So, when Harmony Holdings came up, it tried to revive the initial objective of using a platform to develop the state. So, Harmony holdings' scope is very wide. We have already existing investments like Kwara Hotel, Kwara Investment etc. But again as a virile investment company, we are looking into Green Field Investment and areas that have not been mapped out. We have that mandate from government to do what will think we bring in money and development for government and Kwara State generally. So, the scope is very diversified and the objective of course. The final analysis is to bring development to Kwara State. And I think over these three years that we have been on ground; we have done the best we can, under this circumstance.

With my experience from other investment companies, because under my former company, NNDC, I had the opportunity to virtually interact with investment companies from virtually all over the northern states and even outside the northern states. And if you look at the model with which Harmony Holdings is working, it is a very fantastic one. Because one of the problems about government investment generally is that there is usually too much interference by government. Because if you look at it in theory, there is nothing that makes private sector more efficient than government sector. And over the 30 years, I have always been asking myself, is there anything intrinsically that makes private sector more efficient than government sector? Basically none. It is just the operational guidelines and the objectives.

As an investors, you try to sell your products where the average cost meets the marginal cost. But for government, it sells below that cost. In other words, you are bringing in subsidy. So, that issue of subsidy tends to limit the scope of government. But now with Harmony Holdings, all those incumberances are removed and we work like any corporate organisation anywhere in the world in terms of everything and even appearance of the staff. So, I think we have done so well. Even in terms of one crucial issue, that is employment generation, I think Harmony Holdings has done a fantastic job. You see for a private investor, for instance, he set up and also said one of his objectives is to create employment. No private investor does that; creating employment by private investors is just incidental, but for us, creating employment is not incidental, it is part and parcel of our objectives.

What exactly can you point at as the achievements of this organisation that actually has direct impact on the state government?

Thank you, you see for a business person in a company, the bottom line is profit. If we use that yardstick, I think that best answers your question. So, in that regard, the state government I think got about N75 million or N80 million as a dividend last year. And that is fantastic. Secondly of course, if you look at a company like Kwara Investment, you will note that a lot have changed in terms of the perception of staff and the output of workers has improved. Also, another obvious one is Kwara Express, now renamed Harmony Express. Before now of course, for those of you who travel, you see Kwara Express vehicles park all over the roads from here to Kaduna, for instance, broken down.

But, about two months ago we launched about 42 or 47 brand new vehicles with state-of-the-art technology to ensure that customers are well served and reduce all areas of leakages. So, that is one of our major achievements. But also in terms of developing business ideas, I think Harmony Holdings has done a lot. So, if you look at it within the yardstick of profitability, it has declared profit and it is going to declare profit from time to time. But a finance development institution like this, it is not just about declaring profit, you; know there are two types of profit. There are nominal profit, that is, naira and kobo profit and there is real profit, that is, how many people have benefitted from that investment. For Harmony Holdings, both interm of nominal and real profits, Harmony Holdings has done well.

There is this rumour that the state government is planning to put all state-owned institutions under Harmony Holdings, how true is the rumour?

Well, first of all, rumour will continue to be rumour and let me say that we Harmony Holdings cannot speak for the state government, so that people will not say that Harmony Holdings wants to capture ministries, departments, and agencies. Anyway, there is nothing like that. And on that I am risking representing government because I am not privy to whatever decision has been taken but I know that the leadership of the state cannot do something like that. What is even the basis and rationale for that? Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed will not do anything like that; because in anything you want to do, you look at the rationale, what are your objectives? I do not see any objective there. We are a company that specialises more in business, not in running government. Yes, we run government-investments but we run investments as investors, not as government. So definitely, do not believe that rumour.

I don't believe it because it does not make sense anyway. So, there is no future plan to take over MDAs. Harmony Holdings is not incorporated to do that kind of thing. No government will transfer its own responsibilities to any other person. If government does that, then we have taken over government. I don’t think legitimately or reasonably, any government will want to do that at all. When you hear any rumour, look at the common sense in the rumour. Transferring ministries means that I will not be chairman, I will become governor. These are just very stupid kinds of rumour.

What is the relationship between Harmony Holdings and Kwara Revenue Service?

There is no relationship between the two. No relationship because, first of all, I understand I do not work for government and I don’t work for the revenue service. I understand of course that the revenue service is being remodelled. I do not know the details, but the remodelling is just to make it more efficient. It has nothing to do with us as Harmony Holdings. There is no relationship; of course, if we meet once in a while we exchange ideas. We are here to advise government, whether or not there is revenue service, on how to maximise the IGR of government. So, in that part capacity, well you can say maybe we relate, but I am not aware of any formal sense of relationship. There is no relationship. Again these are two different organisations, the other one is to collect IGR for government and this is to promote development and investments of government. So, there is really no direct relationship.

What are the future plans of the Harmony Holdings?

The future plans are fantastic, because each time we meet as the board, we have to tell the management to hold on and apply some brakes because they have a lot of ideas that if we leave them and give them five years, you will see a lot of development. The future of course is to consolidate Harmony Holdings. We have, for instance, taken transport and we are thinking of courier service. We are even thinking of going into water transportation. I remember some two years back, we were toying with the idea of railways; in fact there was already a relationship with the railways from Ilorin to Jebba and some other places. I think for now it has cooled down. So, we want directly to emphasise development that will bring in profit for government and also to provide leadership in investment for everybody in Kwara.

So, the future is very wide. And I think it can be actualised if they get support and cooperation from people like you, because if we keep on listening to rumours, in fact, we will just get frustrated, that we just fold our arms and doing nothing. But I think that ofcourse is not going to be any option for us. Doing nothing is not going to be an option for us. So, we want to plead with you, anytime you hear any rumour, just contact us.

We will like you to shed more light on the ownership of Harmony Holdings

Quite clearly, Harmony Holdings is owned by Kwara State government. Kwara State government means everybody in Kwara. This company is not owned by any individual or group of individuals. It is company wholly owned, the shares are 100 percent owned by Kwara State government. Since I came on board, I have never seen anything to the contrary. Of course, if you know investment, if you know how companies are incorporated and so on, you cannot hide anything. People who are saying it is owned by some other bodies, they are free to go to the Corporate Affairs Commission to confirm.

In fact, the way they operate now, you can sit down and get a lawyer to search. Search for Harmony Holdings and it will show you who owns the place and so on. And that is the most important thing. Kwara State government is the legal owner of Harmony Holdings. There is no any individual or group of people who own Harmony Holdings except Kwara State government. And I think we should delete that from our minds. We cannot sit down here and begin to tell people lies. I cannot, for instance, and be serving any individual at this age when I am already moving towards the bus stop. Definitely, I want the public to believe us that it is owned by Kwara State government.