Sanwo-Olu Assures Mutually Beneficial Relations With Financial Institutions

By BENJAMIN OMOIKE

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Wednesday said his administration will continue to ensure a mutually beneficial relationship with financial institutions in the state.

Governor Sanwo-Olu made the statement when the new management of Heritage Bank, led by its Managing Director, Mr. Akinola George-Taylor, paid him a courtesy visit at the Lagos House, Ikeja.

The Governor said his administration was poised to do more as it continued to play its roles in providing an enabling environment, improving the ease of doing business and being forward-looking in its dealings with financial institutions.

He said: “Lagos is the Centre of Excellence and the commercial, economic nerve centre, so we cannot but ensure that we have a very forward-looking mutually beneficial relationship with all of our financial institutions and of course, Heritage Bank is not an exception.

“I want to implore you and your team to be intentional and think something fresh; think something different that can indeed stimulate us. You can rest assured that we know how important it is to spread our businesses and to ensure that everybody gets a part of it knowing that you and your staff will also have a corporate responsibility on the Personal Income Tax component. It is expected that we will continue to play our roles and play our parts.”   

Governor Sanwo-Olu congratulated the Managing Director and his new team on the huge and great responsibilities that shareholders and other stakeholders in Heritage Bank have reposed in them.  

“I wish you the very best. On behalf of the Lagos State Government, we thank you for your validation of your endorsement of our government because it is a period of endorsement. We get endorsements on a daily basis. The endorsement of our government is saying that we are doing a good job and we are encouraged to do more. We are humble with those words and it will encourage us to do a lot more,” he said.    

Speaking earlier, the Managing Director of Heritage Bank, Mr. Akinola George-Taylor, commended the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration in Lagos State and wished the governor well as the 2023 general elections approach.

He said the bank would continue to increase the wallet of its business transactions with the Lagos State Government.

“We are here to introduce ourselves as the new management of the Heritage Bank and being that we have had a relationship with the state (Lagos) for a number of years now, we felt it was necessary to come and present ourselves to the Governor; to say thanks for the business that we enjoyed with the government and that we align and commend the great work he is doing for Lagos State.

“And of course as bankers, we want to try and increase our own size of the wallet of the business that we do with the government and to extend our best wishes to him and his government. It was a courtesy call to say thank you and wish him well in the next coming elections,” he said.