Ifeanyi Onuba, Abuja
Tuesday, 7 Dec 2010
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, on Monday, said that the absence of long-term plans for infrastructure financing was responsible for Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit, despite huge budgetary allocations for capital projects.
The apex bank boss, who said this in Abuja at a conference on infrastructure finance, also identified harsh economic environment, absence of risk sharing structures and lack of re-financing facility for assisting banks and other firms engaged in infrastructure financing as factors contributing to the country’s infrastructure problems.
Others, according to him, are inadequate capacity building for stakeholders and policy reversals by governments.
He said the conference, with the theme, “Infrastructure Financing in Nigeria: The Way Forward, was convened to create awareness on government’s efforts towards the development of infrastructure in the country.
He said it was also meant to promote synergy among stakeholders in infrastructure development, as well as create awareness on initiatives, opportunities and policies for private sector participation.
Sanusi told the participants that the positive relationship between infrastructure and economic development had not been achieved on the African continent due to poor performance of state-owned enterprises involved in infrastructure development, huge financing gap and absence of maintenance culture.
These, he noted, had left the continent’s infrastructure in a permanent state of decay.
He said, a recent study of Africa’s 24 states, including Nigeria, concludes that the poor state of infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa cuts national economic growth by two percentage points every year and reduces business productivity by as much as four per cent.
Power poverty is very high. For instance, at an average of $0.18 per kilo watt hour, African power is expensive to produce in relation to global standards. Less than 60 per cent of Africa’s population has access to drinking water.
Source: Punch
