As part of government
strategy to diversify the economy by maximising available resources to increase revenue base, the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA) and the Rivers State Newspaper Corporation (RSNC) have begun exploring viable partnerships to boost business opportunities and accelerate profit inflows.
To this end, the Business Development Units of both Rivers State Government-owned organisations are to initiate engagement sessions to enable experts fine-tune mutually beneficial business collaborations to open windows for enhanced revenue into their financial dragnets.
Executive Director, RSSDA, Larry Pepple, said during a working visit to the RSNC, publishers of The Tide Group of Newspapers, Wednesday that a range of opportunities existed for viable partnerships that could turn around the fortunes of both government business outfits.
The chief executive officer said that at a time when government revenue allocation was grossly dwindling and chronically inadequate to meet ever-increasing needs, departments and agencies of government needed to think out-of-the-box with creative and innovative new ideas to broaden and enliven operational environment in order to open fresh sources to boost internally generated revenue.
Pepple said that in line with the vision of the founding fathers, the commercial printing arm of the corporation should have amassed a large chunk of the bustling business environment, but lamented the dearth of modern equipment to drive profit in a highly competitive climate.
He promised that professionals from RSSDA would work with RSNC staff to ensure that manageable facilities are overhauled and revived while efforts would be made to see how those that require complete replacement may be retooled, particularly the Exercise Book Printing Machine, and the Oldenburg commercial printing machines.
On the near-dormant Goss Rotary Machine, the RSSDA boss said that the agency’s experts would work with The Tide to procure and install the CTTP component of the hi-tech printing machine, so as to set the stage for a whole new era in state-of-the-art printing in Port Harcourt, and directed the Communications Unit of RSSDA to explore strategies to ensure that new printing requirements of the agency are domiciled with the corporation.
In his remarks, General Manager, RSNC, Celestine Ogolo, expressed gratitude to the executive director for the visit and the pledge to partner the corporation with a view to increasing its revenue profile, and assured that his management would synergise with any inward-looking government agency to explore alternative means of boosting revenue sources.
Ogolo pointed out that the corporation could not put the new Rotary Machine to effective use because the  CTTP, a critical component of the facility, which enhances speedy return on investment, was not available, adding that if the CTTP is procured and installed, the corporation would be hub of commercial printing business East of the Niger.
The general manager further said that if the Exercise Book Printing Machine is overhauled and made to respond to the needs of modern environment, the corporation would reposition itself as the epicentre of commercial exercise books printing business and major supplier of the essential need for educational institutions, among others, in Rivers State and beyond.
He also regretted that the corporation could not compete favourably in the competitive commercial printing environment because all printing machines procured by the Alfred Diette-Spiff administration at the inception of the newspaper outfit in 1971, were now obsolete, easily breaking down, and expensive to maintain, adding that with new or rejigged printing machines, business would boom again, and revenue inflow would rebound.

Susan Serekara-Nwikhana