Politics

Nigeria Needs $2.3 Trillion To Bridge Infrastructure Gap, Says Osinbajo

Published

4 years ago

Mar 18, 2021.

Nigerian Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said that Nigeria would require at least $2.3 trillion over the next 30 years to bridge the infrastructure gap.
Osinbajo cited statistics from Nigerian Integrated Infrastructure Masterplan (NIIMP) and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020 to buttress his point

Nigerian Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said that Nigeria would require at least $2.3 trillion over the next 30 years to bridge the infrastructure gap.

The vice-president made this statement on Thursday at the opening of a two-day retreat of the National Council on Privatization (NCP) that would deliberate the proposed amendment of the Public Enterprises (Privatization & Commercialization) Act 1999.

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The Vice President, however, said that the only way to “effectively” address the massive infrastructural deficit that the country faced “is by Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement in one form or the other”.

Osinbajo, who cited statistics from Nigerian Integrated Infrastructure Masterplan (NIIMP) and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020 to buttress his point, said: “the review of budgetary allocation for capital expenditure even over the past decade will show that government resources are completely insufficient for this purpose.”

Prof. Yemi Osinbajo

According to him, “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.

“So, for both institutional and individual investors, there is far more comfort with lending or with equity participation where a private sector entity partners with a public authority owner of the infrastructure.

“This way, the public partner can play its natural role of a regulator (regulation and policy), leaving the business to the private sector.

“So, for investors, PPP presents the best of both worlds,” Prof. Osinbajo added .

The Vice President stressed the need to develop a framework that will be attractive to investors.