The only way to effectively address the massive infrastructural deficit that the country faces is by Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement in one form or the other,” the Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said.
Citing statistics from Nigerian Integrated Infrastructure Masterplan (NIIMP) and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020 to buttress his point, the Vice President noted that “Nigeria will require at least $2.3 trillion over the next 30 years to bridge this gap.
Prof. Osinbajo stated this Wednesday at the opening of a 2-day retreat of the National Council on Privatization (NCP). The retreat will among other things deliberate the proposed amendment of the Public Enterprises (Privatization & Commercialization) Act 1999.
“The review of budgetary allocation for capital expenditure even over the past decade will show that government resources are completely insufficient for this purpose.”
The Vice President in a statement signed my his Media Aide, Laolu Akande stated that While government can take either commercial or concessionary loans for infrastructure development, this is an additional burden on a usually considerably leveraged balance sheet.
“There is a large pool of investable funds from both local and international investors for the development and maintenance of infrastructure. But these are only accessible where there is a business case to be made for developing public infrastructure.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Director-General of BPE, Mr Alex Okoh said the current economic environment requires government to adopt innovative ways of attracting resources for infrastructure development.
