TheCable

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo says a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement is required to solve Nigeria’s massive infrastructure deficit.

Osinbajo spoke on Thursday during the opening ceremony of a two-day retreat of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) in Abuja.

Laolu Akande, spokesperson to the VP, in a statement made available to NAN, quoted Osinbajo as saying the country needs at least $2.3 trillion over the next 30 years to bridge the infrastructural gap.

“The review of budgetary allocation for capital expenditure even over the past decade will show that government resources are completely insufficient for this purpose,” he said.

“While the government can take either commercial or concessionary loans for infrastructure development, this is an additional burden on a usually considerably leveraged balance sheet.

“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 business to the private sector whose reason for being is business; so, for investors, PPP presents the best of both worlds.”

On his part, Alex Okoh, director-general of Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), noted that the country’s current economic environment needs government to adopt innovative ways of attracting resources for infrastructure development.

He said an amendment of the BPE Act would increase private sector participation in the economy and attract more foreign investments.