Improving on areas of strength key to moving LCCI forward – Amb Olumide

BY EMEKA EJERE

A former Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industries (LCCI), Amb Adekunle Olumide, has stressed the need to see the 135 Anniversary of LCCI as an opportunity to reflect on the strengths of the Chamber, with a view to further enhance them.

Olumide spoke in Lagos on Wednesday while delivering his goodwill message at the unveiling of the anniversary logo, with the theme: `135 Years of Business Advocacy and Value Creation’.

The logo unveiling, which attracted the presence of past presidents, honorary life vice presidents, officers, vice presidents, council members and former council members as well as members of the Chamber marked the beginning of the six-month event.

Olumide, who recalled that the Lagos Chamber was the only voice for private business until 1960 when NACCIMA was created, noted that since inception the LCCI has been carrying out its advocacy work, promoting commercial and industrial opportunities for its members.

He identified members, financial autonomy, governance, secretariat and reforms among the strength elements of the Chamber, cautioning that if these strengths are not highlighted and further enhanced, it will be difficult for LCCI to maintain its premier position.

“On reflection I was able to identify four or five major strengths of the Chamber”, Olumide said.

“The first one is the members. Lagos Chamber has to have as its members influential private sector bodies, companies that operate in the key sectors of the economy.  Because once the quality of membership is strong, the quality of advocacy and service provisions will also be strong. And of course there will be need for the service provided to be enhanced so that more companies will be encouraged to join the Chamber.

“The second strength that I think the Chamber has is financial autonomy. I think it’s a very key element.  LCCI realised the importance of financial autonomy, raising revenues through membership, through trade fair, commerce house and some other activities.

“I know that there are plans to diversify even those sources of revenue more. This is important because any organisation that is not financially autonomous cannot go far.

“I remember when I was here as DG, a few chambers that were weak had to depend on subventions from state governments, from city chambers and that was not advisable because the government then tried to interfere and such chambers lost their autonomies. So it’s important that financial autonomy must be fully maintained.

“The other strength I think I should emphasise is governance. The Lagos Chamber has a unique governance system. Succession of officers is predictable and usually smooth, without rancour. Even Nigeria at the highest level cannot achieve that. But the Chamber has shown a good example in that direction. So the governance structure must be strengthened so that the organisation itself will be much stronger.

“Another important factor is the secretariat. Lagos Chamber from the beginning has always had a professional secretariat. No organisation can go very far without a strong secretariat.

“Then the other thing I think is the issue of reform. Any organization that shies away from periodic reforms, the vibrancy and the strength of such an organisation will be weakened. I’m aware that the Lagos Chamber from time to time invites outside bodies like KPMG and so on to look at how it (LCCI) is providing its services, the structure, the secretariat and so on. I think this will need to be maintained.”